Locust Wind
by Alpha Flyer
Summary: "For decades, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crises, reaping war." Following the traumatic events in Greenwich, it appears that not everything that came out of the rift went back in - and somebody is seizing the opportunity. SHIELD's and MI-6's top agents, Barton, Romanoff and Bond are asked to dig deep. Sequel to "Second Mouse"; FUSION.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: "_For decades, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crises, reaping war."_

From Thor: The Dark World to The Winter Soldier was a conceptual quantum leap, at least for me - so needless to say, I felt compelled to connect the dots. And how better to do that, than by introducing a James Bond-shaped curve ball? Since this was written for this year's **Marvel Big Bang**, it became a sequel to last year's entry, "Second Mouse" (many of you asked for one, and I am immune to neither flattery nor bribes). The inspiration for the title - and indeed, the whole thing - came the day U2's "Bullet the Blue Sky" was blasting from my car speakers, and flushed my vague original story concept out the window.

A couple of confessions: (1) I've tried to make reading "Mouse" unnecessary, but can't deny it would help. (2) The Jordanian topography in the later chapters is an amalgam, rather than site-specific. (3) Although notionally this story takes place in November 2013, time in my fusion-'verse is a pretzel, so it has an alive!M, plus Q and a post-Skyfall Moneypenny (just like "Mouse"). (4) We know by now that Coulson is alive but MI-6 doesn't, so don't look for him here. (5) And, of course, none of the characters are mine.

This one gave me hiccups along the way, and may never have seen the light of day without some very special friends, who patted my head when I whinged and lent a helping hand when I needed it: **CloudAtlas**, who did some early Brit-picking and helped give Tom his voice; **Runawaymetaphor**, who ran the first completed draft through the standard how-badly-does-this-suck test. A very special thank-you hug goes to **JRBarton**, who beta-read the entire thing (!) with her eagle eye, and cheered me on during the nerve-wracking home stretch. There's a very nice dinner (and copious quantities of wine) in your not-too-distant future, my friend!

Finally, to my wonderful artist, **Inkvoices, **who had such an impact on the look and feel of "Mouse." This year, authors and artists were allowed to sign up for Marvel_bang in tandem – so imagine my joyful dance when I asked **Inkvoices **whether she might be interested in making a sequel happen, and she actually said yes! I think you'll agree that she has really outdone herself this time (the locust shot gives me the willies). Please hop over to her master post on AO3 (archive of our own . / works / 2511749 - take out the spaces) and leave her a kudo!

I'll be posting every 2-3 days, as I have time.

* * *

><p><strong>Locust Wind<strong>

**By **

**Alpha Flyer**

* * *

><p><em>We are not now that strength which in old days<em>

_Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;_

_One equal temper of heroic hearts,_

_Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will_

_To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield._

M, in "Skyfall"

(Or, if you're a stickler for these things, Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses")

* * *

><p><em><strong>Chapter 1<strong>_

_Romanoff_

"For a city that thinks it's the centre of high snobiety, London sure has a lot of dark alleys."

Clint's comment comes as they stare at yet another cavern, under yet another viaduct, where yet another group of homeless people are biding their time in yet another tenement made of cardboard and rags.

"And tell me again why the Brits aren't chasing this goddamn thing themselves? Right. Never mind. Still licking their wounds and don't want to hear the show isn't over yet. Or else they don't care because so far it's only been eating in the low-rent district."

If Natasha were to venture a guess of her own, it's the latter. Disappearances don't usually register if no one ever noticed the vanished to begin with.

"Something like that. Just pretend you're on one of those Jack the Ripper tours in Whitechapel," she tosses over her shoulder as she steps over the reeking remains of something that may or may not once have been a seagull.

"Hey, not a bad idea, that. We could charge five bucks and sucker some tourists. Probably do better if we had some bait."

"That's _quid_, not bucks," she corrects him absently. He's been complaining steadily for quite a while now, more since it's gotten dark. Natasha has to admit that the _urban decay_ scenario is losing its charm - their current inspection of a crumbling warehousehas yielded nothing but the stench of stale urine and a rustling of rodents.

"I think our target's not really a city mouse, or there'd be more sightings. Maybe it lives in the river and comes into town only for snacks."

Natasha shudders a little. Her sense of humour doesn't really extend to people being eaten by fanged aliens, and that's twice in the last minute now that he's gone there. But Clint seems in an arguing mood – so, fine.

"Have you looked at the Thames? And the traffic on it? Based on how big we think that thing is, it would have to be pretty smart to avoid attention."

"Maybe it is? Smart, I mean?"

She is about to make a retort when a creaky voice comes out from behind a small cardboard fortress.

"Lookin' for summat?"

Hill's lecture on _S.H.I.E.L.D.'s limited investigative jurisdiction in Britain_ couldn't possibly mean they shouldn't talk to people who strike up a conversation, could it? Natasha heads over to the corner with quick strides, arriving at the same time as Clint who has evidently come to the same conclusion.

"You could say that, yes," he says. "Big thing, like a lizard, with teeth. You seen anything like that?"

The man's black, skeletal face and white hair are nearly hidden underneath a filthy woolen cap. In the darkness, almost all that is visible is the white of his eyes – they are clouded with cataracts but still sharp, alert to what matters on the street.

"Y'not coppers, are ya?"

"Nope," her partner says, "and not Social Services either."

Under normal circumstances the man might have been content to remain hidden, but the two agents in their tac suits are probably the most interesting thing he's seen in weeks, especially since Clint has made no effort to conceal his bow and quiver. ("Cosplay," he'd told a late-night stroller who had catcalled them near London Bridge. "Pretending to be one of those Avenger types.")

The old man squints up at them from a stained and soiled mattress – his prize possession, judging by the way he clings to it with gnarled hands.

"'Ow big?"

He casts a quick, suspicious glance at Natasha, who is content to look unthreatening and let her partner do the talking. Clint has always had an affinity for those on the margins.

"Not sure. But based on the reports we've had, about twice the size of a rhino. Meat eater, fast on its feet. Oh, and my name's Clint. Clint Barton."

Clint is smart enough not to mention the CCTV clips that told S.H.I.E.L.D. exactly _how_ big their quarry is; based on his earlier question, their new friend would likely get spooked if he knew they had access to such things. The man keeps his eyes on Clint's bow as he shakes the offered hand, even as his eyebrows shoot up in surprise at the touch.

_Invisible, inaudible, untouchable._

"Tom," he says, not volunteering a last name. But he has apparently come to a decision about trust.

"Ol' Ed o'er there," he points his chin towards a place where a couple of large boxes have been taped together into a crude shelter, "'e says since tha' mess out east, summat's been taking street folk. Dunt leave no bones, so the fuzz says 'e's makin' it up. 'E's ga-ga, y'see, ol' Ed."

His finger does a little circular motion against the side of his head. No need to sift through Cockney speech patterns for that one.

"Maybe he's not so crazy," Natasha interjects. "Is Ed home? Can we talk to him?"

Their new acquaintance shrugs.

"'E's at the mission in Lambeth, I think. Is Friday, innit? They got 'ot lunch there on Fridays, at St Mary's, they do. 'E might bring me a bun and an apple, if 'e dunt forget. Though it's gettin' on. 'E should 'ave been back a while now. Prob'ly found hisself a drink."

Clint nods. _Friday, yes_.

He doesn't address how many hours after lunch it's been, but reaches into his pocket for a hunk of cheese he'd picked up at in the afternoon. (Natasha had insisted that since they had to wait until dark, they might as well grab some food at Borough market; Mr. _Just Protein, Thanks_ had headed straight for Neal's Yard Dairy.) He hands the package to the old man, who stares at it as if he's just been given a gold bar.

"Here, you look like you could use that more than me. Did Ed say anything else? Like, where those attacks took place?"

The old man rips greedily at the wrapper with his teeth; his response is muffled by half a wedge of Cornish Yarg.

"South Bank, 'e said. Round the Clink an' London Bridge - along the river, mos'ly." He scowls thoughtfully, his mind skipping ahead a beat. "Been folk try'na move in 'ere the last couple o'days. Gettin' away from the river, I guess. Findin' shelter. Doors is good."

"The river," Clint says smugly over his shoulder. "_Told _ya."

Natasha rolls her eyes but digs in her own pockets, producing a couple of bills to hand to old Tom.

"Here," she says as the man's eyes widen in awe, "buy yourself a decent meal and a beer. And there's a little extra for someone to hold your spot while you're gone."

"But wait until the morning, when it's light again," Clint adds.

"Stay safe," Natasha tosses over her shoulder as they head out the partially unhinged door. The smell of the river is strong on the night wind. She turns to Clint, who claims to be taking the curvature of the Earth into account with each shot he makes and therefore can be assumed to have the better sense of direction.

"So, hot shot. Which way to the river?"

…..

"It's definitely been here." Clint squints at the enormous footprint in the sand of the riverbank. "Unless they have any other truck-sized four-footed lizard things on this island, apart from in Loch Ness. Guess no one's noticed the tracks 'cause they get washed away by the tide come morning."

Natasha cocks an eyebrow at her partner, whose nostrils are practically flaring with atavistic glee. If she ever had any doubts that Hawkeye was a hunter right down to the core of his impure heart, they'd be gone now.

"You're actually enjoying this, aren't you? And here I thought you might have gotten turned off by that giant turd back there."

Clint shakes his head with a wolfish grin.

"What's not to love? That pile we saw earlier was straight out of _Jabberwocky_. And now we have an idea what that thing smells like."

"And that is going to help us how?"

Natasha cringes inwardly. If that … _scent_ is what they can expect when they meet the latest inter-dimensional menace in the flesh, she would prefer the pleasure to be indefinitely postponed. Big game hunting isn't exactly her thing – what exactly had Fury been thinking, sending them both on this mission? Clint, sure. But sending in a spy?

Then again, cleaning up after Asgard seems to be a growth industry for S.H.I.E.L.D. Maybe if she and Clint – not to mention Stark, Cap and Banner - had been called in on this mess in time, things might have gone more smoothly. (Why _was_ S.H.I.E.L.D. left out of the loop, given the odd events that preceded the latest spatial rift…? Shouldn't someone in Analysis have clued in?)

Perhaps Fury is hoping they could clean out channels of communication while they're here. _After_ the hunt.

Clint, his mind on more mundane matters, scratches his chin thoughtfully.

"I think the reason we haven't found more of this monster shit is that the thing actually_ does_ hang out in the river, traffic notwithstanding. I mean, it's supposedly from one of the cold worlds, right?"

He avoids using the name suggested by Jane Foster, in the official debrief of her inter-dimensional rollercoaster ride: Jotunheim, home of the Frost Giants. _Loki's world._

Clint goes on. "This place must be a lot warmer than the thing is used to; stands to reason it'd stick to the water. Plus, food comes to you. Those rowers they have here? Fast food, almost like a drive-in."

Clint's river theory is as good as any, and the low tide in the Thames might just afford them a glimpse of the thing. The downside is that even after a generational cleanup effort, the smell of the water isn't exactly Eau de Cologne.

"Wonder whether people will still think elves are so cool after this." Clint muses as they make their way down the bank. "That Malekith dude was a lot more Zombie Apocalypse than Middle Earth."

He's been keeping up a pretty steady monologue, an indication that his veins are flooded with adrenaline. For the most part, Natasha ignores his comments and focuses on the task at hand.

"Here's another footprint," she points to the indent in the mud. Good thing she'd opted for boots today; that surface is pretty soft. Not to mention … _Eww. _"And another turd. This one's still steaming."

"Not surprising," Clint says softly, his tone now carrying an undercurrent Natasha recognizes only too well. He points towards the water with his chin. "Two o'clock. Just beside that barge."

"Just a sec." Natasha doesn't question her partner's superior visual acuity, but her eyes need to adjust to the distance and to the ripples of moonlight on the black water. "Got it."

They watch for a moment as the bump in the water – which at first had appeared to her to be just another wave, or perhaps a buoy – starts to move.

"Can you make yourself look more like a snack?"

"Excuse me? You're the one who gave away the cheese."

Clint snorts, even as he molds himself against a wooden pylon in an effort to become invisible for the moment.

"Just wave your arms, or something. Look alive. I don't think this one's a carrion eater."

"Fine. But next time, Barton, you're the bait. And don't think I'm not keeping track." Natasha heads towards the water's edge, a Glock in each hand, waving them in the air. "_Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!_"

The words have barely left her mouth when the grey water explodes into what from her vantage point looks like a snarling mouth, with teeth the size of her forearm. The creature is propelled by massive grey legs, ending in razor-like claws; a vicious-looking tail, complete with a spiky spinal ridge, lashes the water as it leaps forward.

The only thing slowing it down is the water it needs to displace on its way to the riverbank. It must have been stretched out flat beneath the surface, because what is coming at Natasha now is about as large and as solid as a tank.

Forcefully clamping down on the memories of a different raging monster that still occasionally haunts her nights, Natasha empties both her Glocks into the beast's chest. The slugs cause black liquid (alien blood?) to bloom on the grey chest, but don't seem to be slowing it down. Standing her ground is not an option, and she fires off several projectiles from her Widow's Bite bracelets even as she dekes sideways to get out of immediate trampling range.

More annoyed than injured by the electrical charge, the animal bellows in anger, skids to a stop and rears on its hind legs just as an arrow whizzes over Natasha's head and embeds itself in its left eye. Another, louder roar, and the giant lizard shakes its head violently, as if trying to rid itself of a troublesome insect.

_At least it's no longer coming for her._

A second arrow follows, finding its target right beside the first. _Wait for it_, Natasha tells herself as she launches another couple of projectiles – just in case.

_One, two …_

The twin explosions she'd been expecting come as dull thuds; the beast's skull must be hard and deep. But almost immediately bits of - it doesn't really matter what it is, it's organic and she'd rather not think about it too hard – _stuff _spray high into the grey London sky, landing with a splatter in the water and on the muddy river bank.

The body of the suddenly almost headless lizard staggers forward a couple of steps, as if it refuses to accept the fact of its death. Finally, it falls forward; the huge tail twitches a few more times and stills.

"Man, I love those exploding arrows. New generation, small contained blast. Thank you, Tony Stark." Clint tries to sound nonchalant, but Natasha recognizes the smug, _what-an-excellent-kill_ undertone he always gets at moments like this. "Although I gotta say, I feel a bit like one of those NRA types who hunt deer with an AK-7."

_Deer? _

"I'm sure the Natural History Museum would have preferred it if you'd kept the skull intact." Natasha flicks a piece of scaly … something off her leather sleeve. "As would S.H.I.E.L.D.'s clean-up service."

The sound of approaching sirens pierces the air, and the telltale flash of blue lights is reflecting off the wet stones. Even this far from the South Bank, there are midnight strollers along the river who would call 999 for gunshots. Clint cocks an eyebrow.

"You think they object to discharging explosives in a public place here?"

Natasha squints at the blue flashing lights, now racing towards them along the embankment from two directions. Split and risk pursuit, or stay and risk detention? Clint's question suggests he knows the answer: The latest S.H.I.E.L.D. directive for interaction with law enforcement in friendly states is _full cooperation_ – thanks to Alexander Pierce and his latest brilliant idea. And the UK, with its permanent seat on the Council, is a Friendly State.

Natasha sighs.

"Given what we've just killed, we'll probably get off eventually. But just in case – you still have the number for James Bond?"


	2. Chapter 2

_Moneypenny_

M, when indignant, always reminds Eve a bit of Maggie Thatcher at the height of the miner's strikes – with a few more F-bombs, mind you, and no purse, but every bit as much scorched Earth.

The source of today's meltdown is obvious. It has taken the Intelligence and Security Committee the better part of a week to conclude that Greenwich must have been a failure of intelligence, and they had chosen tonight, of all nights, to haul MI-6 on the carpet. (So much for the Sherlock marathon on the Beeb...)

M, as usual, is inclined to spread the cheer. She even left the door to her office open, to ensure widest possible dispersal. Eve isn't sure whether being included - especially at this late hour - should leave her flattered, or terrified.

Bond, who got summoned on zero notice, is apparently neither. The man's grunts are at best unresponsive, at worst, insolent.

"I cannot have MI-6 consistently looking as if we are out of the loop when it comes to alien invasions. Especially when those aliens are seen live on the BBC, cutting a trench through Greenwich in broad daylight. And Norse _gods_, riding the bloody tube. Why did we not have any warning of this?"

_Grunt. _

Eve thinks she can actually hear the rustle of wax fabric as 007 shrugs. He hadn't even bothered to take off his beloved Barbour coat en route to M's office, no doubt to protect himself against the shit storm he must have guessed was coming. The man is no fool.

M is on a roll now.

"I require reassurance that we have not become entirely irrelevant, or the Committee will cut our budget even further than they did after the Silva fiasco."

Bond must have concluded that he should be using his words, even if he stops short of becoming polysyllabic.

"Is that why you called me here, M? To rant?"

She frowns briefly, as if she had given away something she should, on second thought, have kept to herself.

"Don't flatter yourself, Bond. I have work for you to do. Which, if you don't cock it up, may serve to restore our record. Moneypenny – will you please come in and close the door behind you?"

As best as Eve has been able to figure out, the side from which she is asked to close the door is directly linked to the likelihood of a Double-Oh agent failing in his or her assignment. Having a witness to the tasking is a useful thing when the inquest comes.

Eve does as she is told, and tries her best to ignore Bond's knowingly raised eyebrow. He probably reached the same conclusion eons ago.

"I need you to follow up on something for me. Discreetly."

He doesn't ask any questions, not yet, but shrugs off his coat now that it's evident he's here for an actual briefing.

"It's a shipment, we think."

"We _think_?" Bond makes a disdainful pause. Eve feels his pain. She misses the olden days, before all that shadowboxing with aliens from other dimensions, when spy craft still had some… solidity to it. "Have we gotten around to assuming what it was a shipment of?"

M ignores him.

"The consignee is a known arms dealer in Vienna. We have been tracking his activities for a while, and there was an intercept that indicates he was to receive something rather unusual. Given the man's area of specialization, we _assume _we are dealing with a weapons system."

"A weapons shipment to the continent. And this isn't a case for HM Revenue and Customs why?"

M says a few unkind things about Britain's membership in the EU, and how customs union has made their profession infinitely more difficult. It's nothing Eve hasn't heard before, and she is almost ready to turn her mind into neutral when the word _Greenwich_ enters the conversation.

"So we think this shipment came from Greenwich?" Bond solidifies a point Eve evidently missed when she dozed off. "Meaning …"

"Meaning that it could be something those … those _alien things_ left behind. And I want you to find out what it was, Bond, and to get it back."

Bond isn't convinced. In fact, the distaste in his voice is palpable.

"If it's something alien, shouldn't we alert S.H.I.E.L.D.? They _are_ the experts in this sort of thing."

She fixes Bond with her patented glare.

"As I said, I require reassurance that MI-6 is not yet irrelevant. Your suggestion that we hand this matter off to a foreign agency is not helpful in that regard. I want whatever it is that has left British soil returned here, and I want it returned by MI-6. _Especially_ if it is an alien artifact that could cause harm to our European allies if it is used on the continent."

Eve has long since figured out that M's relationship with Europe is the same as that of the rest of Her Majesty's Government: _complicated_. Most of the time she holds the EU in reflexive contempt, but _defence of our European allies_ is a remarkably useful justification for MI-6 engagement in things that might otherwise be a bit dodgy.

"At this point, I have no desire to involve S.H.I.E.L.D. in this matter. We all know what happened the last time they decided to handle things by themselves. Manhattan was reduced to rubble."

_So was Greenwich, _Eve wants to say, but she knows her place and just looks pleadingly at Bond. He gets it.

"So much more reason to go at this together, isn't there?"

It's not often that Bond throws a direct challenge at the Boss, and it obviously gives her pause. But whatever M may have intended to say in reply is drowned out by the phone on her desk.

The _red_ phone. The direct line to Nick Fury's office in S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters. Speak of the devil …

Eve exchanges a few polite phrases with her counterpart, Fury's long-suffering EA, clicks the _hold _button and clears her throat.

"Ma'am, Director Fury is requesting a secure video conference."

"What? _Now_?"

"Yes, ma'am. Apparently it's urgent."

M reflects for a moment, evidently weighing the advantage of a juicy new target for her rant, against the likelihood of coincidence and being forced down the road of cooperation.

"Fine. Put him through. I do hope the connection lasts longer than five minutes this time, and that we get actual sound for the duration. Stay here, both of you."

Moments later, the screen in M's office flickers to life under Eve's nimble fingers and the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. appears, accompanied by a woman Eve recognizes as his competence-oozing Deputy, Maria Hill.

Nick Fury's office is similar to M's - large and ostentatiously empty of trappings, as only the lairs of those with genuine power can afford to be. It's still daylight in D.C.; Eve can make out the Washington column and the Capitol way in the background. Unlike in the bits of South-East London that are just visible from M's window during the day, though, there are no black scars where there should be buildings. No wonder Fury relocated his office to DC from Manhattan; no one wants daily reminders of failure.

It's Fury's nickel, as they say in America, but M doesn't give him the opportunity to state his purpose. She gets straight to the point, lest he suffer from any illusions of collegiality. The rant it is.

"I am so very glad you called, Director Fury; it relieves me of the need to call _you_. S.H.I.E.L.D._ undertook_ to give us a heads up, in the event that one of your … your extraterrestrial invasions was to strike Britain. Yet, the first indication I received about the arrival of an alien vessel the size of Canary Wharf was through our Twitter feed. So much for inter-agency cooperation."

If cyberspace could transmit temperatures, the glare she hurls at the screen would freeze Fury's balls. The Director is as unfazed as he is unapologetic.

"We had no warning ourselves. Ask Councillor Hawley. Sometimes, shit just happens. That's the world we live in, I'm afraid."

Fury actually sounds a bit annoyed himself, which to Eve suggests that he may be telling the truth (if that is ever a possibility in their line of work). But M is not to be diverted.

"That was a pretty peculiar form of _shit_, as you put it, Mr. Fury, and one of your pet aliens was right in the middle of it. So with all due respect, I refuse to accept that you had no idea what was happening. And as a result of your failure to honour the bargain we made, one of Britain's foremost examples of neo-classical architecture lies in ruins."

"Well, if you're wondering why this all went down in Greenwich," Fury replies, "that was apparently a matter of cosmic alignment, not a judgment on building styles. One of the astrophysicists we work with on occasion can explain it to you. I can put you in touch with her, if you'd like. Her name is Jane Foster."

M waves him off. Any contact Fury might suggest is almost by definition tainted; MI-6 will do its own digging, thank you very much.

"I do not suppose your … _Thor_ has deigned to stick around to account for his role in this mess?"

"No, Ma'am, he hasn't," Fury confirms; he doesn't sound pleased. "There've been some deaths in his family as a result of this mess, and he's gone back to spend time with his father in Asgard."

He casts a look over at the still-silent Hill, before continuing. "We're still piecing the details together ourselves. And as for S.H.I.E.L.D., there appears to have been a lag in our own communications, specifically between our European office and headquarters. We had no eyes on Greenwich until after it was all over. We're investigating what happened there. But that's not why I'm calling."

M perks up at the mention of a _European office, _and Eve makes a silent note to check up on that tomorrow_. _ Fury continues before anyone can ask questions. The man is as much of a force of nature as Eve's own boss; if he doesn't feel like elaborating, it's not going to happen.

"Because we _did_ notice, in case _you_ haven't," that last bit is a perfect mixture between superciliousness and _schadenfreude_, "that not everything that came out of the rift went back in."

"You don't say," M says, her voice now neutral and cool.

Fury fixes her with his one-eyed stare.

"That's the reason for my call. _Inter-agency cooperation. _To give you the heads up, plus to let you know that we've dispatched a team of experts to deal with the stray."

"Team? What team?" "Stray? What stray?"

M and Bond are talking at the same time, and appear to have their respective priorities firmly intact: _turf_ versus _target_.

Bond unfolds his legs and sits up to stare straight into the monitor, his attention now fully engaged; M just waits for Fury to deliver.

"Some kind of creature. Came through the rift at some point. Carnivore, we suspect, but not from Asgard or Svartalfheim, where the invaders came from. It's apparently been rampaging around London for a couple of days now. Reports have all come from street people, and been written off as the hallucinations of the mentally unstable by everyone concerned. In any event, we did get word from our European office on _that_, and put our best team on it to help you out."

A minute ago M had been complaining about the lack of SH.I.E.L.D. engagement - now she is mad at them for having shown up. It's a good thing Eve has developed an immunity to attitudinal whiplash.

"And am I to believe that your intervention is based on altruistic motives?"

Fury bores his one eye into M's, right through the screen.

"There is an unfortunate tendency in most government agencies to ignore reports of the unusual when they come from people who can't afford to take a regular bath. S.H.I.E.L.D. listens to everyone."

Fury probably has a point – if any such alleged beast was on a diet of Sloane Rangers or City bankers, disappearances would have been taken seriously. But a discussion on the pitfalls of class isn't worth M's time, and so she changes tack.

"I suppose I should be grateful that you are getting around to advising us at all, but I am certain that our local authorities can deal with the matter. As for that _team _of yours, I would rather not have any more of your so-called Avengers on the loose in my country - certainly not after what just happened with that Thor fellow." She takes a breath, and delivers the deathblow. "Did you know he showed up on the _Underground_?"

"With apologies for the lack of advance notice, but the team is already in place."

Eve suspects that Maria Hill has taken over from Coulson as the voice of reason and relative sanity in S.H.I.E.L.D.

"They're experts in dealing with hostile aliens, and our experience indicates that amateurs shouldn't try to take those on. There've been instances of alien virus transmissions after the Chitauri invasion; who knows what Malekith and his gang schlepped in. So we thought it was best to act quickly and discreetly, so as not to alarm the civilian population any further."

M is about to open her mouth in protest when Bond's mobile rings, in blatant violation of all those _absolutely no cell phones _signs in the doorways and halls. He raises an insincerely apologetic eyebrow and pulls out his phone, presumably to turn it off, but is stopped by the call display.

"I think I better take this," he mutters. "Might be relevant."

He listens attentively to whoever is on the other end, ignoring M's glare and the looks being exchanged between Fury and Hill on the screen.

"I'll be there as soon as I can," he says to the unknown caller and turns to the screen with a smirk.

"Your _team of experts_ just checked in, Director Fury. And we may all want to turn on the BBC."

…..

Eve loves her job. Really, she does. But sometimes, being the go-to girl can get a bit much. Maybe she should try faking incompetence once in a while?

It's past midnight and the air is getting chilly; she wraps the pashmina around her shoulders a little more tightly. She should be in her flat in Vauxhall by now, either in bed or sitting by her little gas fireplace, cradling a glass of Cab Sauv and watching TV.

Instead, she's in full-on inter-agency lubrication mode. Just why exactly does MI-6 even have an _External Relations_ department (with at least one guy dedicated to liaison with the Metropolitan Police), when all M ever does for mop-up is to cock an eyebrow and say, "_Moneypenny_?"

Plus, Eve is still in her bloody heels. Sixteen hours and counting.

She follows in Bond's wake as best she can, across the wet cobblestones and through a phalanx of reporters clamouring for statements on what has started to trend on Twitter as _#ThamesTRex _and _#MoreLondonMonsters._ A line of determined Bobbies opens up when Bond flashes his ID at them, and they manage to duck into the relative quiet of the station.

The Southwark police station tries hard to put forward the modern, inclusive, community-oriented face the Met likes to cultivate these days. Its front halls are freshly painted, photographs showing coppers interact with people are ethnically diverse, and everything is marked as "fully accessible".

The veneer is thin, though – like the cheerful blue paint on the door frames. Most of the denizens that hang out here at this time of day are of a certain economic stratum, disproportionately non-white, and the vomit in the corner is being cleaned up by a black woman. Eve gives her a knowing look: _Here's to the day when a middle-aged white guy will do that job, darling._

Bond interrupts her reflections by flashing his badge again, this time at the intake officer, and demands access to the two people arrested for … what, exactly? Hunting monsters without a licence?

The result of his imperious approach is predictable: _ Bristling Bobby._ The prisoners are lawfully in the custody of the Metropolitan Police; they discharged firearms in a public place; and would MI-6 kindly go fuck itself and stick to its mandate. Yada, yada, yada.

Eve knows a cue when she sees one; she puts on her brightest, warmest, most ingratiating, _we-all-work-for-the-same-Queen_ smile.

"Yes of course. You are right, Constable. Thank you _so much_ for your cooperation, and for allowing our colleagues to call us so quickly. We are here at their request, and not because we wish to interfere with your work. They were, in fact on MI-6 business."

There follows a thorough discussion about professional respect, investigative jurisdiction, community policing, opaque mandates, demanding jobs, awful superiors, even more awful foreigners, and aren't things changing far too quickly these days? Bond looks ready to slay someone, but at the end of it all, the intake officer is willing to eat rusty nails from Eve's hand.

He leans forward eagerly – _one more thing! - _and puts his hand beside his mouth. (Why do people do that? To signal to the world that they are about to say something *S*E*C*R*E*T*?)

"Those colleagues of yours. Were they in town for some kind of Star Trek convention? Those outfits they're wearing are bloody bizarre_._"

Eve leans into him in turn.

"They're from America," she announces in a confidential stage whisper. "Have you seen pictures of that Captain Rogers fellow? It's the new frontier in law enforcement over there. Black leather and spandex."

She's not sure what moves her to add the next thing, but it has been a long night.

"MI-6 is looking into it. Beats white dinner jackets and bow ties, doesn't it, James?"

Bond doesn't deign to answer, but a few minutes later they're shown into a brightly-lit holding cell, where two of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s finest are reconsidering the whole idea of playing nice with the local authorities.

Eve recognizes Agent Barton immediately from their previous encounter, however many years ago. (He was, and remains, a fine specimen of the male species, so sue her for noticing and remembering.) The lines on his face have deepened a little, though, and his eyes look even sharper than when he was trying to make a badass impression - but that's not a bad thing.

She's seen that look on a few of the Double-Oh agents, including on Bond: _adrenaline high. _It's a good look, and she's always wondered just how it would translate in bed. (Bond's conquests seem to have no complaints - the ones that lived to tell tales, at least.)

Barton is standing with his back against a scuffed, bare white wall - once you get into a station this deep, the _cheerful community policing_ look is superfluous. One mud-splattered foot is pressed against the wall, rocking him back and forth and leaving grimy prints in the process. He looks coiled and dangerous, ready to spring into action at any moment - not to mention seriously sexy in that tac gear. (Although Eve isn't entirely sure about the purple accents).

A woman in a similar outfit (no purple, extra points) is seated on a chair that's slightly kicked back, her feet crossed on the cheap metal table. Scarlet red hair frames a beautiful face, which is dominated by pouty lips and enormous green eyes.

The infamous Natasha Romanoff, murderess-turned-supposed-ally. The Black Widow. One of the heroes of New York_. (_Are there any openings in the Avengers?)

Romanoff's eyes take on an ironic twinkle as she nods a welcome towards the two newcomers. The joke, whatever it is, is clearly on Bond - who of course has it coming just on principle, Mr. Can't-Keep-His-Pants-Zipped. For a split second Eve finds herself almost in female solidarity with the other woman.

But then she remembers the young geologist whose contract she had personally typed up all those years ago, and suppresses a shudder. _Naida Ramirez, dead at twenty-six. _Romanoff may be an Avenger now, but her past … The brief thoughts of solidarity and regret at giving up fieldwork pass as quickly as they entered Eve's mind.

Romanoff looks totally relaxed and on top of the situation, observing her partner and James Bond with an air of thinly veiled amusement. (Does she even remember Naida Ramirez? Feel remorse?)

Neither of the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents appears to be armed, but after years of working with James Bond, Eve knows that _unarmed _is a relative term when someone _is_ the weapon. Southwark police station would be a smoking ruin if these two had decided to escape rather than make a phone call.

By far the most interesting thing in the room, though, is Bond's reaction to Romanoff. The file on the Skye op had proved _very_ interesting reading, as had her discussions with the late Agent Coulson. The encounter promises to be epic - worth the unpaid overtime.

For now, Bond plays it cool.

"That's quite the kill you made there, Barton," he says conversationally, ignoring Romanoff altogether; the latter flicks the briefest of glances in Eve's direction. Eve can't help herself; she grins and nods despite herself. _Yep. Men._

Barton, oblivious to social undercurrents, pushes himself off the wall and heads straight for Bond, hand extended.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. cleanup crew, ridding the world of menace, one monster at a time. You want it saved all at once, call in the God of Thunder," he says. "But I didn't do it alone. My partner helped."

He gives a polite nod in Eve's direction. "Ma'am."

A man who acknowledges the EA? Eve's heart thaws a little, and she smiles back.

"So, _James_," Romanoff's voice is a throaty purr. Bond flicks a sideways glance at Eve at the use of his name. (Why? To gauge her reaction? Hoping she hadn't read the file on the Skye Op in all its prejudicial glory? As if.) "Are we free to go, or do we have to sit up and beg?"

Bond finally deigns to acknowledge Romanoff's presence.

"Oh, you're free to go," he says with a smirk, "with thanks from Her Majesty for services rendered, past _and_ future. _Naida._"

Romanoff lifts her feet off the table and plants them on the ground with the grace of a butterfly. Her smile is an invitation to a deadly dance.

"That doesn't sound very altruistic," she says. "Or grateful, for that matter. Future services?"

Barton is more direct.

"Free to go in exchange for what?"


	3. Chapter 3

_Bond_

There is urgency to the mission, of course, but seeing - and smelling – Romanoff and Barton in the station had left him in no doubt that they needed to shower and change before they could be taken out in public. And given the challenge of arranging for flights and mission-appropriate kit at two am, M had even graciously consented to give everyone time for a nap. (Score one for Moneypenny's powers of persuasion.)

They've arranged to meet in the lobby of the Tower Hotel, a place that is slightly upmarket from the one where he'd picked up Barton for their last mission. The location makes sense, given where they'd been planning their little monster hunt, but it's nice to see that S.H.I.E.L.D. has a budget for things other than bows and arrows.

The two agents arrive on the same elevator (shared room?), cleaned up and dressed casually for travel. Although while Barton looks like he lives in jeans, t-shirt and a leather jacket, nothing will ever be casual about the way those same things look on Natasha Romanoff. Bond gets a good look as she checks them out (same room, definitely); if anything she's become sexier in the last few years.

Truth be told, even having known about her S.H.I.E.L.D. affiliation for almost two years now, seeing her again has been … disconcerting. Clearly, the supposed geologist he'd slept with was someone completely different, nor is she the same person Barton had gone off to kill after their joint mission on Skye. But seeing the same face on so many different people is hard to digest, even for someone raised to the craft – the truth is, he's not entirely sure what to make of this version.

_Focus, Bond._

He does the gentlemanly thing to relieve Romanoff of her suitcase – not as heavy as it looks; she must be carrying her weapons. His gesture earns him a small, ironic smirk that doesn't seem to contain a lot of genuine appreciation. Barton just raises an eyebrow and snorts a little.

_Americans._

Once they're in the car and the driver has merged onto the M1 en route to Q's lair, Bond does his level best to explain the basic parameters of the mission.

"It seems that whatever you killed last night may not have been the only thing left behind after the opening of that spatial rift …"

"The Convergence," Romanoff chimes in softly from the back seat.

"Fine. After the Convergence." _Spatial rift_ sounds too … Star Trek anyway. "We suspect that someone - we don't know who - found something …"

"Let me guess. We don't know what?"

Bond ignores Barton's comment and calls up the image of their mark on his smartphone, and hands it back.

"… And shipped it to this man. Radan Vaskovic. Serbian national, rumoured to have had his start as an arms dealer in the Nineties under Arkan, a career criminal turned paramilitary during the Bosnian war. He may even have been responsible for killing Arkan, before the Hague tribunal could get to him."

He can practically hear Barton rolling his eyes at the history lesson.

"He's now pulling strings from Vienna, taking advantage of EU customs rules and an airport that's a hub for much of Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. MI-6 has had its eyes on him since the London Bombings but so far we haven't been able to pin anything on him."

"If he's been keeping his own hands so clean, why would he take delivery of something directly now? That doesn't sound like his MO."

Not an unreasonable question from Romanoff.

"Our analysts think that the lack of caution may have to do with the unusual nature of whatever it was they found."

Barton shrugs as he hands the phone back to Bond.

"Trying to get the stuff out of Britain as quickly as possible? Makes sense, I guess."

"So what's our play?" Romanoff, getting to the point. "Break into Vaskovic's home, find out what he has and take it back?"

It sounds good, but there is a small problem.

"First we have to find out what _it_ is, and where he keeps it. We doubt that he's keeping the goods themselves at his home, but we have no way of knowing where they may have gone. His place has extremely sophisticated security. We need access to his records, preferably his own personal database."

Romanoff and Barton exchange a look in the backseat. There's a moment of silence, then Romanoff pipes up.

"I don't suppose you have a plan somewhere in your pocket?"

Again, the question is not unreasonable, given that the mission was initiated by MI-6 and Vaskovic has been their target for some time. But the need for direct intervention had arisen less than twelve hours ago, and Bond is used to making things up as he goes along, not to have to answer to third parties. Still, these two aren't exactly amateurs, and it might be a good idea to be honest.

"I have … _part_ of a plan."

Barton heaves a sigh.

"Part of a plan. Oh, great. Let me guess. That Serbian arms dealer has a thing for gorgeous women?"

Romanoff just yawns.

"As a matter of fact, he does." Bond probably shouldn't have been too surprised that it hadn't taken them more than a second to read his intentions. At least he won't have to spell things out.

Bond casts a look back in the mirror, straight into those green eyes.

"I'm told that on Wednesdays he eats at a place called …" Bond hesitates for a second at what it says on his notes. He speaks German quite well, but this has way too many syllables, in odd places. … "Called _Steirereck_. It's right in the main city park, so you'll be able to walk there from the hotel."

"That the snazzy thing by the canal, with all the glass?" Barton wants to know. "Good sightlines, 'specially at night. But I assume we won't need that. You and I are supposed to break in while Nat distracts him, right?"

"Something like that."

"Can we kill him if there's a problem?"

Bond hesitates for a moment; that wasn't in the brief, but based on what he knows of the guy …

"I doubt he'll be missed."

Barton emits a low chuckle.

"Guess that license thing of yours is holding up even in the age of Snowden and Wikileaks, eh? Oh, and let me guess. It's valid across the EU?"

Bond doesn't dignify that with an answer, and chooses a different tack.

"You know Vienna, I take it?"

Given that Barton recognized the place from the way he'd butchered the pronunciation, he must be practically a native. Romanoff answers for them both, even though he'd addressed his question to Barton.

"It's right beside the Balkans, has its fair share of unreconstructed Nazis and is a hub for all the oligarchs and mafias of the former Soviet Union. We usually go a couple of times a year to thin things out. Plus, it's close to Budapest."

The two exchange another moment of silence – that seems to be a pattern with them. Bond hasn't felt that much like a fifth wheel since … Well, never mind. Not a story worth telling.

Romanoff closes out the conversation.

"So, we're doing the honey trap thing? Also known as Spy Meets Douche #101. Bond, you've just won the International Espionage Academy Award for Cliché of the Year."

Barton looks bored. "Could be worse. At least the guy is your basic thug, not one of those aristo-types that eat swans and play horse hockey."

Bond is momentarily appalled. He shouldn't be, and they're probably deliberately screwing with him, but he's an Englishman, dammit.

"You mean polo, Barton?"

"Yeah, whatever. That thing on the shirts."

Romanoff waves him off.

"There's only one problem."

Here it comes.

"And that would be?"

"We came to London on a monster hunt, so I didn't bring anything from my _seduce-the-shady-arms-dealer_ collection. This is an MI-6 op. Is your boss ready to buy me some clothes, or did Fury's agreement to sell us down the river not include expenses?"

If that is all …

"I think Her Majesty's taxpayers can afford something. Provided it doesn't have too much fabric."

Barton doesn't seem to have a wise crack to add, which is a bit of a surprise. But then Bond hears his light snore, and all that remains for him is to wonder whether his professional competence has just been questioned - by people who prefer leveling cities to finesse and subtlety.

…**..**

_Barton_

He recognizes the complex, even though it's been several years. Home of MI-6's Quartermaster, or the Agent Formally Known As Q.

Clint suppresses a shudder when he considers the things he'd managed to achieve with Q's little Pandora's box of arrowheads, and wonders whether there's a polite way to turn down any future 'gifts' from his youthful admirer.

He feels a familiar bump against his arm.

"You okay?"

Trust Natasha to be able to detect his mood swing, and guess what it's about.

"I'm fine. Let's go meet Q. For all I know, the guy will hide when he sees me."

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

"Agent Barton! How wonderful to see you again. I've been following your exploits on YouTube. Well, that is, on the censored footage that MI-6 managed to salvage after all the good bits were pulled."

Q still doesn't look a day older than fifteen, which is really unfair given the mileage Clint has put on since they last met. And still with the enthusiasm? You'd think seeing his arrow used in the service of an alien invasion would put a crimp into that.

The temperature of Q's voice drops to something that barely registers on the politeness scale.

"Oh, and Bond. It must have been what, a week?" Q eyes Natasha suspiciously. "And who is this?"

"Agent Romanoff, Barton's _partner,_" Bond explains. There's the tiniest hint of a smirk in his voice, but Q isn't fazed. He turns to Clint.

"I heard about how you used that arrow I gave you, the one that set the virus in the ship's system? That must have been an _astonishing_ shot."

(So he does remember.)

"Emmm… thanks?"

Really, what else is there to say? _A shot that killed eighty-five people and added about a billion bucks to Loki's repair bill? You must be almost as proud as I am._

Q may be a genius geek, but a telepath he's not. Or a guy with guilt issues. Probably just as well. He grabs Clint by the arm and pulls him into a corner of his lab.

"Here, I've been building this after New York, hoping we'd meet again some day. It's not really useful for anyone else, so …"

He scrabbles through a non-descript drawer and hauls out an arrow head. Of course he would. Golly gee, it's Christmas.

"You still use the same bow, don't you?"

His voice quivers a little in apprehension, but he brightens when Clint nods curtly. Clint casts a glance in Natasha's direction, who just gives him an encouraging smirk. Bond is ignoring the scene entirely, scanning the lab for things he might steal if Q doesn't surrender them voluntarily.

Oh well, what the hell. The guy's stuff _is_ effective, you can say that much.

"This arrow emits a single electro-magnetic impulse on impact. Large enough to disrupt … well, whatever you might need disrupting, that is based on EMP emissions."

"Like what?"

Clint is always suspicious when people talk like Stark or Banner, but sometimes the babble actually has useful implications. Right now, though, that doesn't seem to be the case: Q shrugs.

"I have no idea, really. Your agency seems to be dealing with space ships and aliens, and strange phenomena." He casts a slightly contemptuous look at Bond. "I had fun building this, but MI-6 deals with much more mundane matters. No, I want you to have it."

Clint opens the box; the arrowhead inside looks like any of his others, except the metal is shimmering a little blue. He isn't really sure whether there's room in his quiver for another trick shot option, but Q looks so keen he can't bring himself to disappoint the guy.

"Thanks, man, that's awesome," he says, with a sincere effort at sincerity. "I'm sure I'll find a use for it. Maybe this time even against an actual enemy."

Q seems pleased; if he gets even the slightest whiff of Clint's sarcasm, he sure doesn't show it. He turns to Bond and Natasha.

"As for you, Bond, and your lady friend here, I understand that you're off to Vienna to break into someone's house. You'll need earplugs. The music can be deafening."

No one bothers to correct him on the _lady friend_ thing as he wanders over to a non-descript station, opens a drawer and riffles through it for a moment, coming up with three sets of things that look like hearing aids. Q plays with the gizmos for a minute, and hands one to each of them.

"They're synched to each other. All you need to do is to twist the bud when you insert them, and the microphone is live too. Not as good as a mic that would be in front of your mouth, but it should do."

Clint sticks his deep into his back pocket, trying not to remember the time his father had let fly repeatedly with his flat hands against his ears, and he couldn't hear properly for months. It had been a miracle that he got his hearing back, because the Bartons sure couldn't afford hearing aids and the ones the doctor had given him had been a loan only. Good times, those.

Well, it seems to be Christmas in the Q continuum, because the man isn't done.

"Do you still have that gun I gave you a few years back, Bond? The one that responds only to your handprint? No? Of course not. It only cost five thousand quid to produce."

"And worth every penny," Bond says. "I'm sure the Komodo dragon that ate both the gun and the guy who tried to kill me with it would agree."

Q shakes his head and clucks disapprovingly.

"Well, this is your lucky day. I have another one. And this time, if someone else gets hold of it, _do_ try and get it back, will you?"

"I have a better idea," Bond says. "Since I'm stuck with these two for the next few days, why don't you calibrate it so they can use it as well? More motivation for _someone_ to get the damn thing back, if it falls into the wrong hands."

Q considers this for a moment, and heads over to some kind of apparatus that would have Stark salivating (before he'd suggest a gazillion improvements). He sticks the gun into one end, waves a magic wand or something, and gestures to Natasha.

"Please, your hand," he says. Natasha raises an eyebrow and hesitates, but complies when Clint gives her a short nod. "I suppose since there _are_ three of you, and since M told me to _respect the need for inter-agency cooperation_, you may as well all have one. Please stay here, Miss Romanoff."

He heads into another room and comes back with two identical weapons, both Walther PPKs, like the first one. He imprints both with Natasha's hand; Bond's specifications he appears to have on file and can just dial up. Finally, he turns to Clint.

"Your hand, please."

One after the other, he inserts the three weapons into one slot, and Clint's hand into another.

"Those are interesting calluses you have there, Agent Barton," Q observes, holding on to Clint's hands somewhat longer than strictly necessary, and running a thumb over the pads of his index finger. "I assume that's from archery? Remarkable."

Clint pulls back his hand and tries his best to ignore Natasha's grin – which is pretty hard to do, since she wears it right out into the parking lot.

"I don't think I've ever seen a man crush quite that epic." Natasha doesn't even bother to lower her voice, and Bond looks at her with something approaching approval for the first time. "At least, not since Coulson first saw Steve wear that spandex outfit he designed."

"I've been trying to get Q to like me for years," Bond sighs as they get back into the car and the driver starts the engine. "No such luck."

"Maybe he knows you just want him for his toys?"

Natasha's comment doesn't get even a grunt in response, but at least she and Bond seem to be approaching speaking terms. And if they get there by laughing at the guy with the bow, well, that's what carnies are for.


	4. Chapter 4

_Romanoff_

Vienna in November can be quite pleasant, provided it doesn't rain or sleet. There are mulled wine stands and people selling roast chestnuts everywhere inside the Ring, and Clint notes that the place "smells a lot better than in the summer, when all you get is horseshit from those tourist carts."

Most of the centre is a pedestrian zone, so there's no need to dodge homicidal drivers like in Rome or Paris, or sucking in bus fumes like in London. All in all, not a bad place in which to find oneself on mission.

She hadn't wasted any time after dropping off her bags at the Marriott; having a couple of hours of free time before the actual start of an op is a rare luxury. Spending it in a city where people are unlikely to shoot at someone carrying shopping bags is positively divine.

A _foreign espionage moment_, according to Maria Hill - why people join outfits like S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first place: see the world and have some fun.

Clint, of course, hates shopping. He hasn't been inside a store since he discovered that you could buy grey Henley shirts and jeans on-line, and had browbeaten Coulson into telling him what size he should get. So naturally, he opted to stay in the hotel, claiming he needed a workout even more than he needed to see Natasha model backless dresses. (The lingerie, he informed her, he would gladly inspect later, in a more private setting.)

The Marriott has an indoor pool, a sauna and a Jacuzzi; Natasha fully expects Clint's hair to smell of chlorine for days, and with any luck he'll quit complaining about his back for a day or so.

She wonders briefly how Bond will be spending his afternoon. Finding a good-looking young thing to screw? For a professional to be as relaxed about sleeping around as he seems to be, and without immediate purpose, is nothing short of baffling to her.

Not that she has anything to be proud of when it comes to her own past reasons for using her body, and it's pretty clear that Bond feels about her the same way she does about him.

And in her case, there's that additional overlay of disgust, at who and what she was when they'd met. _Naida Ramirez, 28, post-graduate fellow in geology. The perfect skin for the Black Widow to slip into. _

Natasha grinds her jaw, just once, sets the ledger aside and closes the drawer on it (for now)_._ Clint had once done the same. Can Bond?

_Can she?_

Familiar enough with the city to know the best place for the kinds of clothes that make crime kingpins drool, she heads up one of those narrow, cobbled _Gassen, _the little streets that head into the Ring like spokes on a wheel.

Vaskovic lives on the one she is walking up now, in a penthouse atop an old, refurbished former _palais_ – no doubt with exquisite views of St. Stephen's Cathedral. The whole building belongs to his consortium according to MI-6, and can be expected to be crawling with minions even on a Friday night. Natasha slows her pace a mere fraction as she passes the place; a more detailed inspection can wait for the return walk.

Right now, it's time to spend other people's money.

The Steffl department store is pretty crowded this close to Christmas - as if Natasha needed any further incentive to head for the more exclusive designer floor. Milking the patriarchy for its clichéd use of female agents is a just and appropriate thing, isn't it? (Plus, Austria is the home of Wolford…) Bond's credit card is a magic wand in her hand.

She is an efficient shopper, though, and the moment passes far too quickly. And so it is a mere hour and a half later that Natasha walks up the lane, taking in the local architecture (who knows what Vaskovic might like to talk about), and to carry out the postponed recce carrying half a dozen shopping bags like an up-market form of camouflage.

The street is lined with tallish buildings, all called this-Palais or that-Haus; the erstwhile residences of satellites of the Habsburg court, now inhabited by new incarnations of power and influence. On a more mundane side, they all have ornate windowsills and overhangs that would make breaking into or out of them so much easier - Clint will be happy.

Does Bond climb? Natasha is suddenly and uncomfortably aware that she doesn't really know very much about the third member of their impromptu team (except certain things she'd rather wish she didn't remember). But he _did _survive that volcano, and apparently did pull Clint out of a tight spot. Her partner always talked about him with respect, so here's hoping.

The building where Vaskovic has his flat can be seen through a green iron double door, wide enough to admit a horse and carriage if those things were still in use. Beyond the door lies a pretty courtyard lined with flower boxes and urns - lots of shady nooks to keep bodies out of sight, if things go south for the boys while she keeps the mark occupied.

Not bad, as far as locations go.

Back out on the lane, there are numerous little stores, a mix of high-end boutiques and tourist traps. Natasha is considering buying Clint one of those tacky cowbells (in retaliation for the miniature Eiffel tower he'd brought back from a solo job in Paris), when she spots a familiar figure on the other side of the street. The man is heading in the direction from which she's just come, back towards the centre of town.

Agent John McMullen, Level Five S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Not a bad guy, a bit pretentious and by the book; Clint had scared him off pretty effectively the one time they'd been assigned to the same op.

She hasn't seen him around HQ or the helicarrier in some time, so he must be attached to the Vienna satellite office now – it would stand to reason, as it's just a few blocks away on the Opernring.

Their current mission is Level Seven though, and Hill has been bitching about the inefficiency of some of the European station chiefs for some time. When handing them this current assignment, Fury hadn't bothered to suggest that they touch base with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s local office for logistical assistance. There is no point hailing the guy - fewer awkward questions to answer.

Natasha turn into the window display to avoid being spotted by him; she hasn't bothered to hide her hair, but who would expect to see the Black Widow half-buried in snazzy shopping bags?

"Looking to buy a cuckoo clock?"

_Bond_.

Natasha forces the sudden adrenaline surge back down. _From the frying pan into the volcano._ Seems like the man had spent his downtime doing his own recce, not sleeping with some unsuspecting maid - or taking a nap, a shower or a tour on the spin bike, like Clint.

Natasha isn't sure whether to be surprised or disappointed, and goes for the single eyebrow raise by way of compromise.

"Cuckoo clocks are Swiss, not Austrian. I believe in authenticity when I buy crappy souvenirs, so no."

Bond flashes a sheepish grin and holds up a bag decorated with edelweiss flowers.

"I hope Moneypenny doesn't know that. As far as I'm concerned, alps are alps."

Bond has a tacky gift exchange with M's über-competent Girl Friday? Maybe there's hope for the man yet. Unfortunately, he blows it with his next comment, uttered while staring meaningfully at the purchases funded by the British taxpayers.

"So tell me, _Agent Romanoff_. Have you ever regretted leaving behind your life of crime?"

Of course, the man thinks of himself as a wit and probably meant that to be funny. _Right._ Natasha briefly contemplates smashing his face into the window display, but that wouldn't be fair to the merchant. So instead, she gives him the smile she normally reserves for briefing members of the Security Council.

"Just last month, actually. When those Nazis in Accounting refused to reimburse our hotel claim from Cali? Even _after_ we gave them a sworn statement that I'd lost the receipt in a gun battle and Clint attached his bloody t-shirt as evidence? Back in the day, I'd have sprayed the office with sarin and taken our reimbursement from petty cash."

She lets her tongue slowly moisten her lips, taking some delight in watching his pupils expand.

"But Director Fury _insists_ that I can't just randomly kill people who question my expense claims. So yes, I do have regrets."

Bond snaps his jaw shut with a slightly pained smile and says nothing, but by the time Natasha looks up the street again, McMullen has disappeared.

…..

The _Steirereck_ is brightly lit – one of those restaurants that believe in urban chic over folksy ambience. Natasha fully expects the food to be _nouvelle cuisine_, artful morsels of meat dotted with drops of sauce and painterly vegetables on the side. (Good thing Clint isn't here.)

She is seated at a table next to the one where Vaskovic has his weekly conflab with one or the other of his contacts, or so she has been reassured. (MI-6 is equally efficient with both dinner reservations and bribes to the _ma__î__tre d_'.)

Nancy Rawlins from New Jersey had arrived in the early evening, all eager anticipation for a date that tragically did not materialize. Her pout got prettier, the longer the evening wore on, so by the time the king pin and his entourage arrive, the waiter is more than ready to point out the gorgeous redhead who has been so heartbreakingly stood up.

The rest is almost comically easy.

By the time dessert rolls around, Vaskovic has dismissed all but four bodyguard/goons, who are relegated to a separate table in a corner. Nancy is utterly enchanted with his Middle European charm and knowledge of top Austrian wines, and yes, she is _most_ interested in going back to seeing his apartment, with its spectacular night views of St. Stephen's Cathedral. Vienna is so_ pretty_! Not like Hoboken at all.

Nancy giggles in tipsy awe as her new friend shows her the private entrance from the courtyard that leads up to his apartment.

"It's like a palace! _ Is_ this an old palace?" She watches with beguiling interest as one of the goons disengages the alarm system. "You must have some really valuable stuff upstairs," she breathes into his neck.

Vaskovic chuckles indulgently, and comes back with the obvious line, about how his modest art collection is as nothing to the beauty that will grace his humble home once Nancy crosses the threshold. She drops a shy kiss on his neck and asks if she can take a selfie with him and send it to her best friend, who will be _so _jealous and _so _happy that she ditched that horrible jerk of a fiancé.

Oh, and would he please ask those other guys to stay downstairs? They give her the willies, and she might just want some privacy to enjoy those views with him.

The selfie is gorgeous ("Look at it! Caroline won't believe how handsome you are!") and she taps out a quick message before pressing _send_ with a flourish.

Clint will surely appreciate the high-res shot of the alarm system, as well as the information that he'll need Goon #1 for his retinal scan.

He may be less enthusiastic to be told to hurry up.

….

_Bond_

Bond looks at Barton's smart phone, the photo of Romanoff and the man he presumes to be their target.

"_My Darling Caroline,"_ the message says, "_Here I am, surrounded by four gorgeous guys (the bald one would definitely catch your eye!) plus my awesome Silver Fox. Jealous much? So wish you were here! ;-)"_

"My Darling Caroline?"

"Inside joke," Barton refuses to elaborate. "So according to her message, that's Vaskovic and four goons that she knows of. Plus, he probably has bad breath."

"Can she be trusted?"

May as well bring it out in the open. The last time he'd seen Romanoff she had murdered an innocent civilian, slept with him to milk him for information, and abandoned him and Barton to a bunch of thugs with a Nazi fetish - all in the space of less time than they have spent together since Southwark.

"And yes, I know you've worked with her for a number of years now. But I haven't. I need to know. _Can she be trusted_?"

Barton goes very still, and for a moment Bond thinks the man might hit him. Instead, he seems to have come to a conclusion.

"Depends on who you are," he says, "If it were to come down to choosing between you and me, she'd probably pick me, unless I was already dead or dying. In all other respects, yes, you can trust her. Come to think about it, you can trust her on that first one, too. If I were you, I'd worry more about whether you can trust _me_. Been only eighteen months since my last brainwashing; much longer for her."

Funny thing, trust. There are probably only two people Bond would consider having absolute trust in - M and Moneypenny. And ordinary people might not consider _trust_ to be the right label even for that; it's more being able to predict what they're likely to do, in a given circumstance. _Trust M to sell you down the river when the situation requires._

He gives Barton half a grin.

"Good enough."

There can certainly be no doubt that the photo Romanoff has sent is as useful as the information about the number of human obstacles; the picture of the system securing the entrance is crystal clear: _Two cameras, one in the door frame, one into the courtyard. Retinal scan entrance._

Barton reads him pretty well.

"And the bald guy has the golden ticket."

Bond shrugs.

"Let's go."

…..

There is something about the silent city streets that heightens Bond's senses. The feeling of another body mass beside him as he walks contributes to his edginess but he embraces it, channels it into total focus. His step feels light; the grip of his Walther PPK/S, when his fingertips touch it, is cool and reassuring.

Barton's bow dangles (probably deceptively) loosely in his hand; the quiver is slung over his shoulder and molded closely to the fold of his leather jacket. The whole get-up is rather more conservative than what he had worn to the monster hunt, a fact for which Bond is distinctly grateful.

The courtyard is mostly dark, lit only by a string of fairy lights some holiday-minded tenant from one of the other buildings that use it has strung around a decorative cedar. There is movement in the shadows by Vaskovic's building, though, and a couple of cigarette ends glow bright orange in the far corner.

Bond enters the courtyard, ostensibly headed for the building at the far end, past two men loitering beside the entrance he recognizes from the photograph. A man wearing a woolen hat against the evening chill is positioned right underneath the location of the security camera, the other just outside the likely frame.

"Evening, gents," he says, not even bothering to pretend to be speaking German, and puts his elbow to the larynx of the bigger one, pulling him out of reach of the security camera immediately. He feels more than hears as the man's final breath is expelled by the power of the hit; his hands are half-raised in a feeble defensive gesture but he doubles up before it can amount to anything.

The air beside Bond hisses once, then again; he doesn't bother to wait for the two cigarettes to drop to signal the success of Barton's hits. _Trust. _Instead, he twists and rams his shoulder into the second man, who is faster than his bulk would suggest and is already reaching for his gun.

Bond twists sideways to grab the man's hand – there's another hiss, and an arrow sprouts out of the man's throat, centimetres from where Bond's head had been half a second ago. He doesn't waste time fretting about how close that arrow had been to his face.

The dead man is bald. _Romanoff's message. _ Eyeball. Bond ducks down to remove the cap from his first target and pulls it on, before lifting the second man up in position that for anyone watching the security camera could reasonably look like one man lighting the other's cigarette.

"I hope none of the other two is bald," Barton says as he strides over. "Better be the right one, 'coz them, I took out through the eye socket."

Bond's question as to how anyone could locate someone's eyes in the darkness must be written across his face, because Barton shrugs.

"Cigarettes. Reflect off the retinas. Like the man says, smoking is bad for you."

Right. _Hawkeye. _

Bond stashes that intriguing factoid away and positions Bald Guy's head closer towards the scanner. Distaste at the procedure is written across Barton's features, despite his earlier nonchalant comment; his failure to step forward and help seems to be motivated by something other than wanting to stay out of range of the security camera. Well, no matter.

The door clicks open, and Bond shoves their human key aside. Barton, to his credit, takes a moment to drag both bodies into the shadows behind a set of planters (and no doubt to retrieve his arrows). Good thing Vaskovic doesn't share his neighbour's fancy for fairy lights.

No one is challenging their entry for now, but obviously a central alarm system suggests there is a command station somewhere, which presumably means more hostile personnel. At least indoors, without the echo effect of the open courtyard, Bond's silencer should work just as well as Barton's arrows.

Inside, the staircase is old, sweeping and made of stone. The first three floors look like offices – the decoy legitimate arm of Vaskovic's import/export business and its resident money laundry. He seems to be a traditional European employer – no one is at work on a late Friday night. (They probably have medical, dental and a pension plan, too.)

The only living soul is an oblivious Filipino janitor working a vacuum cleaner, the noise of which he is drowning out with an iPod. Barton takes him out with an arrow that just grazes the guy's neck; he drops like a stone. Tranquilizer dart? Bond approves with a nod.

Things get more interesting on the fourth floor, labeled "Transport Sicherheit." _Transport security_. Of course. Weapons brokers can use all sorts of security systems – legitimate ones to prevent diversion, others to secure its success. Whatever firepower Vaskovic needs, he's hiding it in plain sight.

There's the sound of voices, and the smell of cigarette smoke. Bond motions to Barton, who nods his understanding; they move in together – bow and Walther, respectively, drawn and ready.

Of the six men in Vaskovic's Ops center, none survives the next two minutes. Only two manage to draw their weapons.

Barton disengages the various alarm systems in case they might be hooked up to external monitoring, while Bond heads over to the computer and taps in a few commands. Shipping records, incoming and outgoing.

A quick scan reveals what looks like a legitimate weapons brokerage. Nothing recently come in from London, at least not anything recorded in this system. Officially, Vaskovic is sourcing a lot of materials from the Czech Republic, Germany and Israel; as for destinations – nothing jumps out either.

"This is the store front. We need the back rooms."

Barton nods.

"Yup. If he's really got alien tech, I doubt he keeps info on it on the goon floor."

"You're probably right."

Bond retrieves his USB stick and points up towards the ceiling with his thumb. _Up? _Barton doesn't need to be told twice.

The door to the penthouse, when they get there, is ajar. Barton nocks an arrow; Bond's Walther is ready to deal death. They needn't have bothered.

"It's open," comes a cheerful, throaty voice.

The scene, when they enter, is one of relative peace. Vaskovic lies prone and still on the couch; it's only the odd angle of his head that suggests he may not have simply dozed off. Romanoff is busy with a silver laptop that's plugged in on an exquisite, antique cherry wood desk.

"You're late, fellas."

Bond slides his Walther back into the holster, and Barton slings his bow over his shoulder.

"What?" he asks, looking at Romanoff. "You decided to go ahead without us?"

She shrugs and focuses on the screen. "I figured you'd be getting here around now, and be clearing the decks downstairs. He was beginning to annoy me."

"Did you actually need us on this op?" Bond asks carefully. Given that they dispatched only about ten men between the two of them (not counting the Janitor Who Lived), he suspects that Romanoff could have walked out of the place entirely unscathed, had she chosen to do so.

"Don't answer that, Nat," Barton interjects. "Our frail male egos like to wallow in a sense of usefulness. What'd he do to piss you off?"

Romanoff gives Barton a smile that contains an encyclopedia of unstated messages. What she says is, "He was a walking Marxist utopia - utterly without class. Plus, he smoked. Tongue like an ashtray."

Barton casts a triumphant look over at Bond that it doesn't take a dictionary to decipher: _Didn't I say, bad breath?_

Romanoff goes on, though.

"But he did brag about having _friends_ who are going to make him not only rich, but one of the most important men in Europe -_ once they take power_."

Bond frowns.

"I suppose you didn't find out who these friends are, and where that power grab will take place?"

"_They'll be everywhere_, he said. He wouldn't be drawn out any more than that. I did get the sense it was more than a handful of thugs, though. More like a political movement."

"Or a terrorist organization," Bond counters.

Something on the screen catches her eye.

"Have a look at this, boys – something just came in on his private e-mail."

They look over her shoulder together; Bond is equally aware of the scent of Romanoff's perfume (she still likes the same one), and of the fact that Barton takes great care not to crowd her as she works.

The minimalist message is from a _JMM_ to an _M Shoukri_; RadanV is on the cc line. The text is as clear as it is brief: _Pkg dep VIE 23:20 CET_.

"Package departed Vienna International Airport at 23:30 hours Central European Time," Romanoff translates, lest there be any doubt.

Barton is not pleased.

"Shit. So the jackpot left while we dinking around here, taking out the garbage. Does the message say where it went?"

It doesn't, but within a few minutes Romanoff manages to pull up the IP address of the recipient. She lets out a soft curse.

"Jordan. The recipient's IP is in Jordan." She looks up; her face, for the first time since Bond has met her, is full of genuine concern.

"Whatever that alien weapon is, it's headed for the Middle East."


	5. Chapter 5

_Barton_

A quick check via Natasha's smart phone establishes that the next commercial flight to Amman doesn't leave Vienna until 10:30 am; procuring a Quinjet or another private or military flight would take just as much time, especially on a Friday night.

So, basically, they're stuck.

If anyone were to offer Clint a super power, being able to put life on _scene selection _or _fadeout _would be high on the list. Skipping the boring stuff between those scenes when shit actually happens, like they do in the movies, would be nice. But no. Real life is ninety percent jetlag, having to find food or a can or a place to sleep, endless fucking flights, and a whole ton of hurry-up-and-wait.

And to add insult to injury, that's usually when the other guys get to do their moves. Like right now, when something that's almost certain to be an alien weapon is headed to a part of the world that's already burning with shit ranging from ancient tribal hatreds to sarin gas. Not to mention psychopaths who blow themselves up on YouTube, perverting the name of a peaceful god.

At best reckoning, they will be twelve hours behind and with no idea where the stuff will go after it arrives. And the most positive spin Clint can put on the delay is that he'll have time to grab a few hours of sleep, and maybe design and practice the finger movements that'll let him dial up Q's fancy new arrowhead. And, of course, watch Natasha working the next steps.

"We should get both S.H.I.E.L.D. and MI-6 to get more granularity on that IP address. And to monitor incoming shipments into Amman."

Bond nods, and gleefully uses the opportunity to coax Moneypenny into booking their flight and ground transport while she is at it. ("Best multi-tasker on the planet.") When the answer comes in, he gives a brief snort.

Based on what Clint has seen from that spitfire of a woman, it's probably something along the lines of "_It's Friday night, Bond – Get your own bloody travel agent!" _ followed by a frowny face like the ones he tends to get from Natasha. But Bond sticks his phone back in his pocket with a smug grin, so at least it wasn't a no.

They walk back to the hotel through the damp, chilly November night. There's really no reason to spend the night in anything other than a taxpayer-paid, five-star room with a hot shower and a minibar.

So far there are no sirens, nothing to indicate that anyone has found the little stash of bodies in the courtyard. Bond, though, keeps staring at Natasha and seems to be bursting with a question. He holds it back until they're in the elevator, and when it comes, Clint sure wishes the man had kept his mouth shut.

"Agent Romanoff. You're obviously very good at getting into your marks' … confidence. What's your yardstick for sleeping with them?"

Clint braces himself, as Natasha looks at Bond through slightly hooded eyes.

"I didn't sleep with Vaskovic, if that's what you're asking. He had the most disgusting aftershave."

She pushes the button for their floor.

"Working conditions improved a great deal when I joined S.H.I.E.L.D.," she casts a fleeting glance at Clint before turning her brightest smile at Bond. "Before then, I couldn't afford to be too picky."

The elevator door opens and they head down the corridor to their respective rooms, Bond internalizing the fact that he's just been hit with a verbal right hook. Which, truth be told, is just fine with Clint. He holds the door for Natasha with a deliberately old-fashioned flair.

"Breakfast at seven," he tosses over his shoulder towards Bond, but Natasha has the last word as she sashays past Clint.

"These days I only get fucked when I want to be."

So, all things considered, maybe those fade-outs in between the action aren't always a bad thing. And there are times, even as he is waiting for what's pretty certain to be another trip up shit creek, when Clinton Francis Barton considers himself to be a very lucky man.

…..

_Moneypenny_

Eve has long since given up on telling Bond that she's not his personal travel agency. Plus, she knows what M would say: "_This is a joint operation with a foreign agency and as such highly sensitive, please take that into account, Moneypenny!"_

And so, after passing on Bond's far more reasonable requests to trace the IP address and track cargo flights into Amman to Analysis, she resignedly waves her magic wand, chalks up another debt owed to her, and books the flights to Amman. Business class, to cut down on double-oh-whinging; defensible to the auditors because _Joint Operation With Foreign Agency_. (The 'show-off' clause.)

She presses "submit" and forwards the e-receipt to Bond's smartphone. Done. Well, that was fun.

Eve looks at her watch. _Bloody hell._ Being awoken at eleven thirty G-bloody-MT to go into the office – no talking to Analysis using unclassified comms - means that there's no way she'll go back to sleep, Friday night or not.

Might as well do some work.

What was it that had the boss in a tizzy again? Right_. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s European office. _Painting a target on some unsuspecting fuck-up's head for future consideration is officially warranted.

Eve looks at her watch again. It's a long shot, but if S.H.I.E.L.D. is anything like MI-6, no one leaves before eight, not even on a Friday. She picks up her phone, hits the speed dial selector and punches #7. What had Coulson said again, about the value of back channels?

Sure enough, a familiar voice picks up on the second ring. Fury's EA had been promoted into the job a few weeks after New York, and by now she and Eve almost qualify as friends.

"Seema? Hi. It's Eve, in London? Fine. You? … That's good. … Yes, things are still in quite a state here. I have a_ completely_ new appreciation for what you guys went through in New York last year."

It's Friday night – Saturday morning now, actually, and already after hours in DC too - and no one pre-authorized overtime. But more to the point, it's just nice to speak with a fellow human being who doesn't feel entitled to ask for things, or give orders.

And so Eve happily briefs her counterpart on the Greenwich disaster. In loving detail, of course, including a spot-on impression of the Director when she found out the exact nature of the problem: "_Elves? On British soil? You have got to be fucking kidding me!_"

Seema particularly appreciates hearing about the most recent aftermath, of course, and the image of two of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s finest in a London police station. ("Are there mug shots?")

Fifteen minutes and a few good chuckles later, the requested details about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s European office pop up on Eve's screen. Locations, staffing complement, area of operations, cell phone numbers …

Nothing top tier classified of course, but there are benefits to formal intelligence sharing agreements and knowing whom to call. Just enough information to allow for cross-referencing with MI-6's database of _People We Don't Like_, and maybe to paint a nice fat target on somebody's forehead. Hopefully there will be enough there for the boss to find a nice, tidy hit list on her desk first thing Monday morning.

She lets out a sudden yawn. Maybe sleep will come after all? No point sticking around then, is there. A glass of merlot might help, once she's back at her flat.

Eve pushes _run_ on the program, picks up her purse and turns off her desk lamp. She secures the office area and heads for the elevator, and wishes the lonely night guard at the entrance to M's inner sanctum a belated lovely start to the weekend.

On Monday morning, she will note that she was probably still on the elevator when the first correlation popped up on the screen.

Timing, as they say, is everything.

…**..**

_Barton_

Strike Team Delta has been to Jordan before, of course, but the last time was before the so-called Arab spring, and well before Syria imploded next door. Something about using the ancient ruins of Petra as a place to stash drugs, if Clint's memory serves.

All he can remember about the place, though, is trying to swim in the Dead Sea afterwards (you can't, you just float on top like a flat board) and having to get out, because the salt burned in every scratch and scar he'd ever received in his life.

Since then, Jordan has become pretty much overrun by refugees. It's always been a decent little country, trying to make a go of things while everything around it is going up in flames. As a result, it's a magnet for people running away from the fighting, and is now bursting at the seams.

"Refugees aren't the main problem though," Bond says as they're waiting at the gate in Vienna, "as long as others are willing to send humanitarian assistance. The real issue is foreign fighters."

Clint knows what he's getting at, and nods. Brits, Americans, Canadians, Saudis – all sorts of nasties are using Jordan to get into Syria and Iraq, places where they can indulge their inner Loki by killing innocent people with impunity. In Syria, some of them try and act like good guys, supposedly fighting to get rid of Assad and his cronies, but it's only a question of time before their true colours will come out.

Sure enough, Bond continues, "Based on our intel, the Syrian opposition includes card-carrying members of Al Qaida, the al-Nusra front and an assortment of other groups on our watch list. If any of _them_ were to get hold of whatever Vaskovic was selling, the Middle East could get even nastier than it already is."

And there was nothing in Vaskovic's books to suggest who was paying his bills… Natasha shrugs in resigned affirmation.

"And funnily enough, we've probably been arming some of these people ourselves." No one's ever accused politicians of intelligence and foresight, Clint knows. Intervention by the West or the USSR gave the world the Contras, the Taliban and all sorts of other delightful groups, all in the name of international peace and security (and the occasional drop of oil). Natasha, he knows, agrees; her next words confirm it.

"I wonder what Frankenstein we're hatching in Syria right now."

What she doesn't say, of course, is how often they themselves have personally flicked the switch that brought a given monster to life. And been sent in to clean up the mess not too much later, once that same monster had trashed an important china shop.

Bond, who seems to have gotten over whatever bugged him last night, clenches his jaw a little. _Been there, done that, _his eyes seem to say.

As far as Clint is concerned all those wannabe-statesmen and their unaccountable flunkies, who decide which side of a conflict to support with taxpayers' money, should be tied to a chair and made to watch _Charlie Wilson's War_ before being allowed to bet on games they know dick about. Just how the fuck does handing out campaign leaflets qualify anyone for a job in geopolitical engineering?

As Natasha likes to say, _Regimes fall every day. _But unfortunately (or not), picking which ones to prop up and which ones to hurry along on their way out tends to be above their pay grade.

They get into Amman after dark – five hours of flight, plus time shift, and boom, there goes the day. Analysts are still tracking who picked up the shipment and where it's been taken, so that means another fucking useless night in a hotel.

If anyone ever thought places like Jordan were tropical paradises, they haven't been to Amman in November. It's not that it's actually cold – it beats Vienna - but you don't expect to be putting on a jacket in a place that has palm trees. Just an hour south, down by the Dead Sea, it'd be eating-outside weather now. Clint hands his duffle to the driver and zips up his hoody with a sigh.

The driver is a local guy named Zeid. Natasha, of course, has immediate trust issues; you can just tell by the way she looks at him, like _where should the garrote go?_ But her reason seems to be more that Bond said the guy had been attached to the local MI-6 station for years, rather than that he gives off some kind of Al Qaida vibe.

"We have rather good relations with the Jordanians," Bond had said in the lounge in Vienna, which Clint had decoded as _MI-6 plays in the same sandbox as Jordanian intelligence._

So, Zeid probably works covertly for the Jordanian spooks as much as he draws a salary from the British ones. But as long as he doesn't try to sneak into the Cone Of Silence or read things he shouldn't, MI-6 will look the other way and write off his salary as capacity building.

You make your decisions of who your friends are based on odd things sometimes. Based on what Clint has read over the years, the Jordanian government isn't exactly a choir of angels. But they're trying to make a go of feeding their people, keeping the place together and not picking fights with the neighbours. Plus, they routinely open their doors to millions of desperate souls who are fleeing wars not of their making. So, all things considered, Clint is prepared to cut one of their likely undercover spooks some slack.

Besides …

"You know, your King once did an episode of Star Trek?" Clint offers when they drive past an illuminated Commander-in-Chief type poster of Abdullah, near the edge of the airport. "When he was the Crown Prince."

Zeid gives a genuine smile. "Yes, His Majesty is very fond of Star Trek. Is well known here in Jordan."

Natasha arches one of those _what the hell are you talking about and why?_ eyebrows at Clint, and so he explains, "The guy's got a sense of humour. Which is more than you can say for most people in this neck of the woods. So, three points to House Hussein."

"He's also three-quarters British," Bond throws in, although Clint isn't sure whether that's supposed to seal the King's credentials, or whether he's just being a dick. Bit of both, probably.

Yes, you make your judgments based on odd things sometimes, and obviously not everyone uses the same criteria. But the point is, you can't spend every day of your life sitting on the fence. Sooner or later, you gotta hop down on one side or the other. With countries, kings, causes - or people.

Like he'd done once with Tasha.

Maybe she and Bond will figure that out some day, too, and stop eyeing each other's carotid arteries with barely sheathed claws.

…..

_Romanoff_

The morning comes with the distant calls of a dozen muezzins, greeting the sunrise from blue-roofed mosques. It's a sound Natasha has always been fond of, a bit otherworldly yet oddly grounding – one of the most beautiful truths of the Middle East. You'd certainly never wake up thinking you were in Geneva or Novosibirsk.

Clint is up already. He can sleep until all hours during downtime, but when they're on mission, the adrenaline kicks him awake at five. He's going over his kit, itching to get the show on the road, when Bond bangs on the door.

"MI-6 got word from the Jordanians overnight," Bond says as he enters, with a sideways look at Natasha, who is still drying her hair. She's not sure how to interpret that look, but it's not exactly warm and fuzzy. Almost as if he expects her to pull out a gun any minute. "And you're not going to like it."

"They've lost the trace?" she asks the obvious question and shakes out her curls, running her fingers through them to get out the worst of the tangles.

"No. Worse, possibly. The only shipment that arrived at the airport _ex_ Vienna yesterday was consigned to and picked up by the UNHCR."

"The what?"

Clint has never been good with acronyms. The only ones he ever really internalized were those for the various three-letter law enforcement agencies; even spelling out "S.H.I.E.L.D." still gives him the occasional hiccups.

"UN High Commissioner for Refugees," Natasha explains. "The agency responsible for running the majority of the refugee camps in country. "

She turns back to Bond.

"Are they sure?"

For once, Bond abandons the slightly sarcastic tone he seems to reserve just for her; his voice is cool and professional.

"Positive. Wooden crate, marked '_water purification_ _equipment', _in German." He looks at a note as if to jog his memory. "Marked for delivery to the Za'atari refugee camp near Zarqua, northeast of Amman."

"So there's only one, at least? Crate, I mean?"

Clint sometimes relentlessly obviously tries to find the positive, but his voice betrays his disgust. Natasha is with him on that; the whole idea of dressing up a potential weapons system as humanitarian assistance is … disturbing, not to put too fine a point on it.

It's been done before, of course. Hamas and Hezbollah routinely hide their weapons in hospitals, their fighters amid the civilian population in schools, mosques, and community halls. The Taliban – farmers by day, IED technicians by night. And all equally quick to scream _war crime! _when attacked, whether their human shields are actually present or not.

"Does the UN know about this shipment?"

Bond shakes his head.

"Apparently not. Which confirms that this is it. Apparently, faking UN credentials is an excellent way to get contraband into the region these days. Immunity from search and seizure, no questions asked, priority handling."

It really is brilliant, Natasha reflects. The country is strapped for resources, and anything that comes in to relieve the burden is welcomed with open arms.

"Plus," Clint says, "there's money going into the local economy from all those officials looking the other way. Everybody wins, no one gets hurt. Usually."

"Until they bring in the wrong stuff," Bond nods. But then he adds, "I doubt the shipment is intended to stay here, though. Jordan is a transit state. Final destination is almost certainly Syria."

Nobody argues the point.

"Where do we start, then?" Natasha wants to know. "If it's not an actual UN shipment, it could be headed anywhere."

At last, Bond has some good news to pass on.

"The customs agents our Jordanian colleagues interviewed indicated that the vehicle looked legitimate, and that people at the airport recognized the driver's assistant. So for what it's worth, one of them seems to work for the Refugee agency. And he said he was headed for Za'atari."

"Not all refugees are angels," Natasha considers. "When countries emptied the camps in Bosnia in the nineties, they inherited a good number of war criminals they didn't bargain for. And there's probably traffic across the border into and out of the camp."

"So what are we waiting for, then?" Clint snaps his bow; even barefoot and half-dressed, he looks ready for action. "Let's blow this pop stand before the stuff gets into Syria. I'm not really keen to have to play find a needle in a haystack, especially if it's already on fire."

"Zeid is waiting for us downstairs."

A small smile ghosts across Bond's face.

"Wouldn't want to stand in the way of you burning off some adrenaline, Barton. But I do suggest you put on a shirt and some shoes first."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6 **

_Romanoff_

The way out of the city is not direct; nothing, Natasha knows, in this part of the world ever is.

The drive leads past a building that would be non-descript except for the several hundred people waiting on the sidewalk - even at this early hour - for the doors to open. Women are sitting on the sidewalk, holding sleeping children; the men are mostly standing, smoking. Guards with machine guns are a menacing presence, but seem to be ignored by common consensus.

"Syrian Embassy," Zeid says, as if that explains everything. Natasha looks back over her shoulder until the car turns the corner, watching the scores of people staring at nothing while they wait.

On the way out of town, they pass a bustling military base. Jordanians may be rooting for peace, but they're not naïve, and they've invited anyone and everyone to help build up their defence in case the fires across their borders rage out of control. A military vehicle with Western markings turns left into a heavily fortified checkpoint.

"Place feels like it's under siege," Clint comments as they overtake a convoy of trucks with camouflage paint.

"It is," Zeid says matter-of-factly. "Jordan is in tough neigbourhood, sir."

The buildings and the traffic start to thin out as they head north. There are increasing open spaces, whole hills filled with garbage – plastic bags, old tires. Occasionally, there are people poking through it, with a donkey nearby to carry whatever they can salvage.

The country opening up on either side of the road now is dry to the point of desiccation. Pale browns, yellows, ochres and gunpowder grey dominate the landscape, against a backdrop of rugged, arid mountains and remnants of trees that look like tinder.

Occasionally a dark green, tufted cedar pokes out of the dust or an olive grove, suggesting the availability of at least some water. Those trees are usually accompanied by a small handful of buildings made of white corrugated metal whose painted doors, together with the inevitable laundry fluttering in the wind, provide a bit of relief from the monochrome landscape.

And increasingly, in the dips between the stone-filled hills, there are small encampments. Tents, dusty trucks, people huddled around steaming kettles.

"Wait," Bond says. "See those markings, on those tents over there? What do they say? Do we have binoculars?"

"UNHCR," Clint replies. Who needs binoculars, when Hawkeye is in the car? "Those the people who supposedly get that shipment?"

"I thought the refugee camps were further North," Bond asks Zeid. "And bigger."

"Yes. Most of these people not refugees," the driver shrugs, and steers the car around a small group of cattle, accompanied by two partially veiled women on donkeys. "They are farm workers. Migrants. Tents are stolen, or bought on black market."

Sure enough, behind many of the tents are rows of greenhouses, made of corrugated plastic and designed to preserve what humidity there is to enable crops of vegetables to survive the summer heat.

The town of Zarqua looks much like the outskirts of Amman – the same pale houses, with wires running between them into spaghetti-like connections that look like electrocutions waiting to happen. The occasional vendor's cart or open storefront are surrounded by people. As she always does in places like this, Natasha wonders how anyone here will find the money to buy the fruits and vegetables on display; how the farmers themselves make ends meet.

Zeid doesn't slow down for any of that. He just weaves around the pale, mangy cats and the occasional pedestrian or person on a rickety bicycle. And pretty soon, following a serpentine drive over, through and down those arid hills she'd seen earlier, the landscape opens up momentarily and they get their first glimpse of the Za'atari camp.

"Holy shit." Clint's comment is echoed by Bond, who utters a "Bloody Hell."

The expanse of the tent city in the valley below is staggering, both in its scope and apparent organization – there are streets and open areas. On the southern-most edge, between the mass of tents and what looks to be an olive grove, there are numerous larger tents and some pre-fab structures that might be administrative offices, hospitals or schools.

Most disturbingly, the place seems well on its way to becoming permanent.

"Za'atari is the fourth-largest city in Jordan now," Zeid states matter-of-factly. "Nearly a hundred thousand people, and thousands more come every day."

"What's the security situation like inside?"

Clint has taken the words right out of her mouth. Zeid understands perfectly, and gives them exactly what they need. Clearly, he has skills other than driving a car across desert mountains.

"There is camp police," he says. "Jordanian police, with support of foreign governments. Sometimes there are clashes. Fighters come across from Syria, find and attack people they don't like. Americans, they reinforce border, so isn't happen often. But many people angry and sad, nothing to do, and many have guns. Different groups, they like to argue. Everyone is poor, so much small crime. Much family violence."

So, basically, the place is a powder keg.

Natasha exchanges a silent look with Clint, whose face is grim, having come to the same conclusion. She takes in the incomprehensible expanse of the camp for as long as it remains in sight, trying to memorize its layout before they turn back into the hills.

It must be windy down in the valley; as Natasha watches, the wind drives large clouds of dust into the camp, smudging the white tents at the outer edge with grey.

…..

The next bend removes the sight from view and instead brings another one of those smaller encampments – five or six tents, one with UNHCR markings, scattered around a small compound that includes a couple of decrepit-looking huts. The whole thing is enclosed by what looks like hastily erected razor wire, apparently a common means in these parts to keep goats or chickens from running into the road.

_Except …_

"Zeid, is there any reason there would be a van with UNHCR markings up here, when you say those places aren't actual camps?"

The implications of Natasha's question are immediately clear to all. Zeid starts to slow down the car.

"No, keep going - around the next serpentine," Bond says. "Better have a look from a distance first. If those are our lads, I doubt we can just walk in."

The problem with a landscape as empty and pale as this is that it's easy to see someone coming. The superiority of the high ground is a basic military truth; no one disputes Bond's assessment.

The road winds around the mountains for another turn, down towards the valley and the main camp, and partly up another hill. The suspect encampment now lies behind them and lightly higher – not bad for observation.

"What about that olive grove over there?" Natasha points to the side. "Good cover. Would people let us stop there for a bit if we were to, say, ask for water?"

Zeid nods slowly.

"People are wary of refugees, but friendly to Westerners. Farmers sell olive oil. You can buy; good reason to go there. Then find reason to ask to stay a bit."

As improvised cover stories go, it's not a bad one. While they drive up the bumpy dirt road towards the small compound Natasha embroiders it a little, by turning them into journalists headed to the camp to do a piece for Reuters.

The farmer is happy enough to sell some of his oil, freshly pressed, and orders a young boy to go and tap one of the barrels. It's the first sale for him of the new crop, and he explains in excited Arabic that this will take a few minutes.

Zeid secures permission for them to wander into the olive grove to take photographs of the camp in the distance; Clint's duffle with the compound bow doubles as a camera bag. So far, so good.

The olive trees themselves are remarkable - stubby and gnarled, with silvery leaves that seem to have somehow assimilated the dust of the hillside. They are laden with fruit, and the November harvest has begun. Pickers, presumably from those small encampments of migrant workers, are everywhere, offering excellent moving cover for any potentially prying eyes from further up the mountain.

Bond has managed to locate the binoculars and, leaning comfortably against a tree, starts scanning the mountain. Zeid somehow procures a second pair for Natasha; Clint, who normally likes to rely on his superior eyesight, twists the scope off his bow for a boost given the distance.

Natasha adjusts the binoculars to her eyes by scanning the valley; the dust cloud she had observed earlier seems to have blown through most the camp and – somewhat oddly – now seems focused on the small grove of olive trees on its outer edge. Parts of the cloud are already blowing towards the hills, towards them. She finds something vaguely disturbing about the way the cloud is advancing - almost as if it were moving of its own will – but there are more important things to be dealt with, things closer at hand.

There is a fair bit of movement around the small encampment up on the other hill, but none of the usual livestock they'd seen in similar places along the road. The UNHCR van sits off to a side, beside a dusty pick-up and a couple of new-looking jeeps.

"Good quality vehicles, for a place like this," Bond observes. "Someone up there does something a lot more profitable than grow olives or herd goats."

It's pretty clear, even after only a few minutes, that farming is the last thing on the mind of the people milling around the camp. Nor are they, with one or two exceptions, locals. The predominant look is Northern European, Caucasian.

"Guys?" Natasha suddenly feels a bit breathless as her binoculars scan a figure of a man she is sure she's seen before. He's fleshed out a bit, and his hair has thinned, but ... "Have a look at the man coming out of the small building. The one in black. Does he look familiar to you?"

"Bloody hell," Bond mutters. "That's Anton Marquardt."

_Anton Marquardt – _scientist and expert in explosive technology, would-be tamer of the dormant powers of the Earth and senior member of a resurgent HYDRA, familiar to them all from the mists of Scotland. More so to Clint and Bond, of course, who had spent more time in his unpleasant company, trying to prevent a plan so ambitious as to still seem preposterous in hindsight.

"Should have knocked that fucker out of the sky when we had the chance," Clint grates out between his teeth.

Natasha spends a few precious seconds compartmentalizing memories, with Bond's eyes on her as he gauges her response to Marquardt's presence. _The guy was my mark too, you idiot, _she wants to scream, but really, what's the point?

It seems that Bond has moved on, though, because what he says is conversation, not confrontation.

"I'm surprised no one's caught up with him since. I know MI-6 has been looking, and he's had a Red Notice on him since Skye."

Bond looks meaningfully at Natasha, whose own tracks have long since been erased by S.H.I.E.L.D. (Maybe he's not _quite_ ready to move on yet?)

"Interpol doesn't reach everywhere," she replies curtly.

War criminals under indictment by international courts managed to hide in plain sight in major European capitals for years, hidden in shadows cast for them by their friends. In places like Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, even Southern Turkey, land borders are as porous as Swiss cheese. Even the most sophisticated tracking tools are only useful where there are people willing to pick up a phone, physical checkpoints, and someone available to deal with the data.

Clint is much more in the moment.

"Who gives a shit how he got here," he growls. "He's here now, and that officially makes this a HYDRA op. Just what we fucking need. And whatever they found in Greenwich is definitely part of it. Look beside the tent, the one with the markings. On the blue barrel."

Both Bond and Natasha train their binoculars on the UNHCR-marked tent. Its fabric is a dirty grey, bleached out by the hot summer winds and frayed by the blowing sands, almost part of the landscape. But the… _thing_ sitting on an olive oil barrel beside the tent - that most definitely does not belong.

Matte-black and larger than one of Fury's Phase II prototypes, the alien weapon gleams in the midday sun. Its stock, if that's what it is, is shaped like a dragon's neck. The entire thing looks oddly organic – grown, not made, and oozing an otherworldly menace.

Marquardt, meanwhile, has stepped up to it and strokes it with a gesture that even from this distance appears reverent, almost sensuous, as if he had found the object of his desires.

"Alien, but not Chitauri." Clint's matter-of-fact voice disrupts Natasha's thoughts. "They're right, it must be from that Greenwich crowd, wherever the hell they came from."

Marquardt is picking up the weapon now, a smug smile on his face. He seems to be holding it backwards, though; what Natasha had thought of as the stock actually appears to be the front end. And what had looked like the barrel, now sticks out awkwardly from under Marquardt's arm, pointing backward – clearly not the business end of the weapon.

"That can't be comfortable to hold," Bond mutters, and Clint adds, "How the hell would you be able to hit anything small with that? Must be aiming to scatter."

A man, wearing a head scarf wound across his face to protect him against the dry wind and blowing sand, strides over and corrects Marquardt's grip. He points to something (controls?), and gives some kind of explanation.

"German," Natasha sighs. "I can't lip-read German."

As it turns out, what happens next renders any need for interpretation unnecessary.

The flaps of the tent open, and two men in camouflage suits emerge. They are either military or pretending to be, and dragging a third man roughly between them. There is no doubt that he is a prisoner. He is struggling even though his hands are cuffed behind his back and his feet are tied; he looks terrified. A local civilian, judging by his dress; there is no indication that he presents any kind of threat.

The two quasi-soldiers dump the prisoner unceremoniously on the ground and step back. In fact, everyone seems very keen to get away from him, and to get behind or beside Marquardt.

The front of the alien artifact, the part that looks like a dragon's head, is starting to glow, ready to spew blue fire.

Natasha casts a quick glance over to Clint, who is grinding his jaw and reaching into his duffle for his bow.

"Clint," she starts to warn him, but a hiss from Bond makes her lift the binoculars back to her eyes. A click behind her signals the unmistakable snapping together of Clint's bow.

Across the hill and up, there is a blue flash, followed a second later by a short, dull _thud _that echoes down into the valley. And the prisoner …

"Jesus H. Christ," Bond hisses out, and it's as appropriate a response as anything to a sight none of them are likely ever to forget.

The prisoner, writhing on the ground one moment, has shattered into a thousand shards, then vanished – as if he had never existed. An image in a mirror, cracked and gone.

Marquardt lifts the alien weapon as if in salute to its effect, looking around for affirmation and applause before delivering something that looks like a lecture. _Right. Scientist and fanatic_. No doubt he is telling his worshipful audience how it works, and how it will help mankind to achieve HYDRA's glory.

Natasha feels more than she hears Clint drawing an arrow; it's a long shot, but she knows he can make it. _Will_ make it. He is, after all, Hawkeye. If he lets go, Marquardt will die.

"Clint, no!" she hisses. Hawkeye's instincts are reliable to a fault: _protect civilians. _Except this one is already dead, and avenging his death and shutting up Marquardt, while no doubt satisfying, isn't exactly smart right now. _Maybe later._

Bond obviously agrees. He drops his binoculars to leave them dangling on the strap around his neck.

"Barton, don't!" he barks. "We can't let them know we're here. Not yet."

Clint dips his bow ever so slightly, without loosening the tension on the string, and seems ready to argue the point. But whatever he might have said is drowned out by sudden screams coming from the compound, and Zeid's voice, urgent and close to panic, coming closer as he runs towards them.

"Mister Bond, Miss Natasha, Mister Barton! Come quick!"

…..

_Bond_

The terror in Zeid's voice is almost palpable, and seems to have dissuaded Barton from doing something supremely stupid (if tempting), more than Bond's own or even Romanoff's warnings. He actually pulls back his bowstring, collapses the thing more quickly than Bond would have thought possible, and slides it back into the duffle before the approaching driver can get a good look.

Not that the man seems interested – something has him in a genuine panic.

"What is it?" Bond asks, but even as the words leave his mouth, he knows – just _knows -_ that there is something very, very wrong in the air, and all around them.

It's coming in on the desert wind, a dry whisper at first but already a hiss, and then he sees it: a many-taloned cloud, weaving and pulsing, shifting and turning, mindless but not - no, not entirely - determined and unstoppable.

No, not a mindless cloud at all. A living thing rather, made up of millions upon millions of other living things, spawned from legends older than the written word and ready to devour everything in their path.

_Locusts._

And they are coming for the olive grove.

"Quick, quick, in the car!"

Zeid cries out again, his voice skipping now, far from the composed professional demeanour Bond has come to expect from him. He is running back towards the car, evidently not interested in sticking around to see whether anyone else will heed his warning.

Bond casts one more look at the encampment on the other hill and makes a decision.

"Let's go!"

He turns on his heel and follows Zeid, who has almost reached their vehicle. The sound of footfalls – almost drowned out by the rattle and hum of the fast-moving swarm – confirms that Barton and Romanoff are following suit.

All around, the pickers are panicking, running towards the ramshackle outbuildings and the farmhouse. Those who have them, are wrapping headscarves around their mouths and noses as they scramble to get inside … inside _something_, anything that might offer some shelter.

The farmer is starting to run for a laundry line on which sheets had been flapping - to cover himself, or his crops? - but two of the workers grab him and drag him towards the house instead.

Bond can see it now, that living cloud, like something out of a horror movie, with boiling black tendrils reaching and clawing forward into the compound and a buzz that seems to reverberate inside his head.

All three agents reach the car at almost the same time. (How on Earth can Romanoff run so fast in those heels?) Zeid is already inside, frantically rolling up the window he'd left open for air circulation. Bond takes the front seat, slams the door shut, and does the same on the passenger side.

He is dimly aware of Barton and Romanoff hurling themselves into the back; the sound of slamming doors is followed almost immediately by the clack-clack-clack of countless chitinous bodies hitting the windows.

And the world goes dark.

"The hell?" Barton's voice is still a little hoarse from the run through the dry desert air. "Where'd all those fucking bugs come from all of a sudden?"

"They're locusts," Romanoff says, a note of surprised awe in her voice.

"Figured that one out for myself," Barton has to raise his voice to make himself heard over the relentless noise. "Not what I asked. That many, you'd expect to hear about on the weather report, no? _Today, cloudy with a chance of locusts? _Where'd they come from? Crawl out of the ground, all at once?"

Bond's memory can be a remarkable thing – razor sharp or diffuse, depending on the subject and the need for recall. (_Vesper is gauze, a feeling, not an image, while the faces of her killers are etched into his mind like laser on steel.) _ This time, it kicks in with encyclopedic precision.

"Locusts are basically grasshoppers. They normally stay in roughly the same place, and don't bother anyone."

Hard to believe that, what with all those twitching bodies pounding the windshield in numbers that his brain refuses to compute. Zeid's attempt to keep the glass clean with the wipers backfires rather spectacularly, and streaks of yellow-green ichor are beginning to coat the window. Bond reaches over and flicks off the wipers, with a look at Zeid: _Don't._

Meanwhile, his mind continues to spew forth the kind of knowledge his twelve-year-old schoolboy self had, for some odd reason, found valuable enough to store.

"When they start crowding each other, usually with fluctuations in the food supply, a biochemical reaction starts. When there are so many that they keep touching each other, that reaction causes them to change colour and breed even more. They turn into the swarming type when there are several physical contacts per minute, over a certain period."

Barton grinds his jaw.

"Bit like those HYDRA types, huh. For decades they're underground, just there somewhere, and next thing you know, _boom_."

Bond almost corrects him – hadn't he just said that there was nothing underground about locusts? - but it doesn't really matter, so he just shrugs and watches the insects milling around against the car window in odd patterns. They seem to need to be convinced that there is nothing to eat there – most take off again within seconds after landing, making room for others.

Zeid had gone pale and still, crawling ever deeper into his seat and staring at the window screen with morbid fascination, like someone might at a corpse that is repulsive and fascinating in equal amounts. But he revives a little at the prospect of getting rid of some knowledge of his own, and sits up a bit.

"They say there have been swarms big enough to cover hundreds of square miles. It is written, in both the Bible and the Holy Quran. They eat everything in their path. Everything green." He looks out the side window, where the small grove of olive trees doesn't stand a chance. "There will be no crop here this year."

"That totally sucks," Barton snarls from the back seat, an impotent rage seething in his voice. "Not like people here don't have enough shit to deal with."

Bond shifts in his chair. He's disarmed nuclear devices and stopped megalomaniacs aiming for world domination, but some things you just can't control. What does Barton want - someone to say _there's an arrow for that?_ Or a serum? An alien god, or a man in a flying suit?

He swats at a hopper that seems to have gotten in somehow.

"This is nature, taking its course."

His voice sounds pathetic to his own ears. Barton is not impressed.

"And we just get to fucking sit here and wait it out. Great."

Zeid clears his throat, clearly misunderstanding Barton's frustration.

"Swarm not last long, Mr. Barton. These olive trees, they are few. Not much to eat for bugs. They will move on soon."

"I think you're right. I saw them going through the camp and the trees on the outer edge when we looked at that," Romanoff says. "I thought it was just dust devils then. They've moved quickly, when they were done with those."

Bond tries to relax into his seat, doing his best to ignore Barton fidgeting behind him; for a sniper, the man seems unusually twitchy today. The olive grove is barely visible through the onslaught – a pixilated outline as if seen through bad reception on a TV screen, and with similar sound effects.

What is noticeable, though, is how the outline of the trees is diminishing, thinning. _Devoured alive,_ is the phrase that runs through Bond's head, and he shudders involuntarily.

Sure enough though, after a time the volume and density of those insects on the car windows seem to decrease. Another few minutes and quiet sets in; the swarm has moved on. They can leave the car, provided no one minds spitting or swatting at the occasional straggler flying in their face.

The scene outside the sanctuary of their vehicle is one of utter devastation; not a single shred of greenery remains, anywhere. The trees are completely denuded; their thick, stubby trunks are topped by scraggly, empty twigs like grotesque cartoons of hairless old men. The few pots where the farmer's wife had tried to brighten her world with flowers - empty vessels now.

The ground itself is crawling with insects, exhausted and dying. Their feet crunch as they walk, and Romanoff vocalizes her disgust in muted, inarticulate noises for which Bond can't blame her in the least.

"This place looks like something out of a Tim Burton movie," Barton remarks to no one in particular as he stares at the skeleton trees. Bond glances over at Romanoff, who raises an eyebrow and shrugs, inured to Barton's penchant for pop-culture references.

One by one, the workers emerge from their various places of refuge. There is a loud wail – the farmer's wife? - and muffled shouts of despair that you don't need to speak Arabic to know are speaking of a life in ruins. The workers, too, are despondent; there will be no two or three weeks' wages here, not anymore.

Romanoff pulls a roll of twenty dollar bills from a pocket in her jacket.

"We haven't paid for our oil yet, have we?"

Barton looks at her for a moment, flashes a grim grin and pulls out a wad of bills of his own. So much for hardened international assassins. _Interesting._

Bond scrabbles through his own pockets, extracting the few quid he finds there, a small stack of Euros and a ten thousand yen note. He hands it all to Romanoff, who lopes off with it towards the farmer's house.

She pushes the bills at the farmer's wife, who seems stricken by one of those uninhibited paroxysms of grief that you see (far too often) in TV coverage from this part of the world. The woman stares at the small pile of money for a moment, but stops crying, nods and slowly walks back into the house.

She emerges without the money, a young girl clinging to her skirt, hands a single canister to Romanoff and follows her retreating back with liquid eyes.

"This stuff better be good," Barton comments as Romanoff drops the canister on the floor of the car. It's time to move on; there's nothing here for them anymore. "World's most exclusive oil, the first and only pressing of 2013."

Romanoff flicks a residual bug off her shoulder with her thumb and forefinger so hard it bounces against the car and falls to the floor, dead or stunned. She clears her throat.

"So, in the last couple of weeks we've had the heavens open and the Earth trembling in Greenwich, and now we have a plague of locusts. I suppose we should avoid disease-carrying vermin, and look out for four strange-looking guys on horses."

Her throaty voice has the usual ironic overlay. The last few minutes might almost suggest that she is capable of empathy, but of the two, only Barton ever seems to get worked up over anything. Is Romanoff ever anything other than detached? And almost as if to prove Bond's point, Barton spews forth a curse that could curl a man's hair.

"Guys? The van's gone, _and_ that fucking weapon. And guess where they're headed?"

He points, and Bond's stomach gives a little lurch. The van with the UNHCR markings must have left the encampment up on the hill while they had been trapped in their car. It is now moving down the road below, followed by a couple of jeeps in a small convoy.

The alien weapon is headed into the valley from which the locusts had risen up, and where tens of thousands of innocents have found shelter from an entirely different kind of storm.


	7. Chapter 7

_Romanoff_

"_I'm_ driving."

Maybe Natasha shouldn't find this funny but it is, especially with that side-glance Bond gives Clint - rather than Zeid, the guy being paid to do the job. She hadn't been present when her partner so comprehensively trashed Bond's Precious, of course, but epic recitals of their river-of-lava drive are a staple at S.H.I.E.L.D. Christmas parties (her own version of that drive nobody talks about, which is probably just as well), but Clint always judiciously omitted any reference to the role testosterone might have played in the exercise or its aftermath.

Fortunately, Clint's ego isn't attached to something as mundane as driving a car; he prefers to keep his hands free for his bow anyway. He just shrugs a Bartonesque _whatever_.

Zeid, however, makes a stand.

"Fine, Mr. Bond. You drive. But I come anyway."

Natasha gives Clint a quiet nod, which he correctly understands to mean _take the front. _It isn't that she doesn't want to sit beside Bond; the man's issues with her presence are his alone. But the windows in the back don't roll all the way down, enough to fire a Glock or a Walther, but not a bow.

He climbs into the passenger seat, leaving the back for her and their Jordanian … whatever he is. Zeid is clearly more than a locally engaged driver; no one pulls off that level of naïve niceness _and_ unexpected competence without professional training.

Bond doesn't hold back on the speed. The car flies out of the farm and down the hill, leftover bugs hitting the windshield like desert popcorn. Over Clint's shoulder, Natasha can see into the valley, where the convoy is slowing down as the UNHCR van enters the camp (_checkpoint?_) by the area where the large tents are.

Schools, hospitals? Natasha tries not to think about the implications. Still, they need to figure out what this latest move could possibly mean. _Know the motive, find your lever._

"What exactly can they be wanting inside the camp?"

"Nothing good." Bond cranks the steering wheel for another hairpin turn, leaving a cloud of dust in the car's wake.

"No shit," Clint mutters. He seems to have decided that this is a good time to go over the finger patterns in his quiver.

"Two options," Bond elaborates. "They're either going to sell the thing to fighters hiding out in the camp, or they're planning to use it. Either way, the question is why."

Natasha tries to keep her voice cool as she grabs on to the _Oh fuck! _bar. If there is a living expert on HYDRA, it's Steve Rogers.

"Steve's been pretty clear about one thing: Whatever HYDRA is doing benefits HYDRA. No one else."

"Selling the thing doesn't make any sense," Clint chimes in, "Even if it's just another fundraiser. There's no market for a single one-off weapon no one can fix, even some Elvish disruptor thing. Not unless you're a collector, and you won't find one of those in a refugee camp."

"Who is HYDRA?" Zeid has been following the discussion closely, it appears, and focuses on the essential. Definitely a professional.

"Nazi spin-offs, who thought Hitler and his politics lacked scope and ambition," Natasha explains.

"And they have long-term plans of some sort," Bond adds, "based on what we've seen when we encountered them before. Big, expensive plans. So why take the thing here? Barton's right. There's no money to be made here."

"Maybe it's not about money," Natasha replies, but there isn't any time for further discussion as the car is pulling up to the checkpoint. Bond rolls down the window, and a guard pokes an M-16 into Bond's face.

"We're with Reuters," Bond flashes his most charming grin, making no motion to move the muzzle aside. Yet. "Doing a story on UNHCR. Can you show us the way to Central Administration?"

Another gun-toting guard stalks around the car and stares into each window, as if he could spot and disarm a member of the al-Nusra front with the power of his frown. When he gets to Zeid, though, the latter unleashes a torrent of Arabic and flashes something that looks suspiciously like a badge. The guard steps back and says something to his comrade, who salutes and waves them through. Bond doesn't waste a second and peels off in the direction the van with the weapon had been heading.

Natasha raises her eyebrow at Zeid.

"Jordanian secret service." Zeid has the good grace to be apologetic. "I thought we needed to speed things up. And yes, I'll submit my resignation to the Embassy. First thing tomorrow."

His English, it seems, has become considerably more colloquial in the last hour or so as well.

"MI-6 sure knows how to pick its drivers," Clint remarks blandly.

Bond doesn't seem fazed in the least and makes no comment, while Natasha, who has dropped very few covers in her career and always for a good reason, approves of Zeid's timing. As for the man himself, he seems to be a bit taken aback that no one seems to be surprised or angry at his revelation, but he recovers quickly.

Bond heads into the camp with as much speed as he can, although it is getting harder to drive. There are people everywhere now and with nowhere to go, none of them are in a hurry to get there. In addition, now that they're on level ground, the sea of tents make it virtually impossible to see further than a few feet.

"The van was headed in the direction of the hospital tent the last time I saw it from the road." Natasha points at a sign with a Red Crescent and a Red Cross, and an arrow pointing left. "Let's try there."

"We'll probably need to split up," Bond says, cranking the wheel to avoid a chicken, and the small child chasing it. "Those comms devices of Q's might come in useful."

"We only have three sets," Natasha reminds him as she digs through her pockets for hers. But then again, while Zeid may have turned out to be more useful than they'd thought, she has no idea of the level of his training and whether he is up to what they might be facing.

"Zeid – if that's actually your name – suggest you do your best to keep the local security types off our back, while we …"

She stops as Bond brings the car to a screeching halt. The white UNHCR van and the jeeps they had been trailing sit facing them, fifty or so meters away, in an open area between two large tents. One of the tents is marked with the Red Cross and Crescent, the other with the white-on-blue logo of the United Nations.

And in between them and the vehicles – and their occupants – are hundreds of civilians.

Both tents are obviously main destination points; there are dozens of families waiting outside each of them, and milling around in the space in between. Men, women and children, all waiting for different things: medical attention, registration, maybe a chance to talk to someone about what to do or where to go next. Many look like they have been through some form of hell, others as if they're still there.

A crowd is forming around the UNHCR van. Of course – people would assume that officials from the agency had come to take applications for resettlement, allowing them to book a ticket out of despair.

_And this is the place to which HYDRA has brought a weapon that can shatter people into nothing._

Natasha's guts knot themselves into a warning even as she hears the slamming of three other car doors, the _snap_ of Clint's bow, and the crunching of boots on sand.

Zeid must have gotten her message. He's already racing over to a small group of armed men in fatigues – camp security guards, she hopes – his magic badge in hand.

"_Testing comms_," comes Bond's slightly muffled voice in her ear. "Come in."

"Romanoff, copy," she says, "heading for the van, east around the hospital line-up."

"Barton, copy." Clint sounds a little breathless, running. "Taking the long way round the MASH tent, to come at the van from behind."

"Bond, Western approach, along the UN tent."

Natasha ploughs into the crowd. It's a bit easier than she thought it would be – her Western red hair probably identifies her as a possible aid worker or UN official on urgent business, rather than a line buster, and people step out of her way. A woman shouts a question at her as she passes but she just keeps going, holding out her hand to stop an oblivious little boy from running into her. Each step brings her closer to the van; she can see its roof over the heads of the crowd.

And then she spots him – the man she'd last seen on the streets of Vienna, half a block from the offices of Radovan Vaskovic: _Agent John McMullen, of S.H.I.E.L.D_.

He is standing a few feet away from the white van, scanning the crowd in the classic posture of security personnel looking for threats, his hand on a bulge in a military-style parka that no doubt is concealing a sidearm.

Natasha has been around the block far too many times, under an array of different circumstances - coerced, of her own free will, and in between – to believe in such a thing as coincidence.

Has Fury been keeping things from them? Wouldn't be the first time. But then again, he wouldn't usually hand the sensitive secondary mission to the B team.

McMullen's scan reaches the spot where Natasha is making her way towards the van. Their eyes meet; his narrow the tiniest fraction. Her presence is evidently as much of a surprise to him, as his is to her - he is definitely not here at Fury's behest.

Her mind rapidly ticks off what she knows of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s European operations: _Failure to notify Headquarters of the odd phenomena reported in London prior to the Greenwich incident._ _Failure to report the possibility of a weapon left behind in the incident itself._ _McMullen, walking away from Vaskovic's office in Vienna. _

_That e-mail about the departure time of the shipment to Amman: JMM to M. Shoukri. _What's McMullen's middle name? Michael?

How much would HYDRA have to pay to buy an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.?

Natasha lifts her chin in greeting, and relaxes her body for what she knows will come next.

"Agent Romanoff?"

He doesn't have a clear shot, not through all those people. The game is on.

"Agent McMullen," she replies, sounding concerned and just a bit relieved, and plays the Fury card. The man creates cracks, things fall through. Are _expected_ to fall through. "I assume S.H.I.E.L.D. sent you here to back me up? I was wondering what the hell he was thinking, sending me into a place like this alone."

McMullen hesitates for a split second, processing - draws conclusions and nods. He's not stupid. Well, not entirely, so here's hoping his conclusions are the right ones.

"You alone?" he asks, injecting his voice with the necessary – if a bit too audible - disbelief. (Amateur.) "Not even Barton? That's just ridiculous. No wonder you're glad to see me."

Natasha nods enthusiastically.She ignores Clint's voice in her ear, slightly bouncy as he runs: "Tasha? Who the fuck you talkin' to?"

Time for a test - this Q guy's stuff better be as good as Bond seems to think.

"They tried to take my guns at the checkpoint. Can you imagine the gall? I assume they took yours, too? But I managed to get a couple through in places they didn't think to look. I assume you can use one."

McMullen smiles and nods eagerly, his contempt for Fury's vaunted top asset's apparent obliviousness barely hiding his glee at getting a chance at a close shot.

He closes the gap between them with long strides, hand outstretched to receive his prize. Natasha hands him the Walther, and almost rolls her eyes at the immediacy with which McMullen turns it on her and sticks it in her gut. _No subtlety at all. Definitely the B-team._

"Sorry, Romanoff," he says insincerely. "But you're in the way."

Natasha is almost tempted to ask _of what?_ Her instincts are screaming, _give me an hour with this man in a dark room. _But the hand with the gun gives the telltale jerk of pulling a trigger, and there are other things to worry about.

Nothing happens – _спасибо_, Q.

Natasha drives the heel of her boot into McMullen's patella, not waiting to hear the crack of the breaking bone; he gives a short scream and drops his head down in pain. She wraps her garrote wire around his neck and pulls tight to crush his larynx; no time for choking. The Walther drops uselessly into the sand.

"Changed teams, have you?" she whispers into his ear as McMullen sinks to his knees, retching out his last breath. "Bad move."

She retrieves her garrote with a flick of the wrist and kicks the body away from the gun with her knee.

"One down," she says more loudly as she picks up the Walther and moves on towards the van. "Clint, that was McMullen – we have a traitor. Must have worked with Vaskovic."

But there's no time for conversation. From the far side of the van comes a strange sound, followed by shrill, panicked screams. Natasha breaks into a run again, dispatching a burly man, who lifts up his Uzi at her approach, with a quick shot to the head. The Walther feels unfamiliar in her hand, but it does the job.

_One van, three Jeeps. Two men down. How many more? _

She rounds the van and one of the Jeeps parked beside it. A handful of men that do not appear to be refugees (Western dress, side-arms on the ready) are on the other side. Bond is already approaching the first, who seems distracted by the scene in front of him: a smiling man, readying the alien gun.

A group of civilians is drawing close, curious, and she can see why: the matte-black thing looks exotic, almost sensuous, and the part that most closely resembles the traditional business end of a gun is pointing away from them, towards the van. _They don't see the threat._

The guy Bond is closest to falls to a cracking hit on his skull, inflicted by Bond's gun. Natasha takes out a man who has seen his colleague drop and is lifting his own gun, with a shot to center mass.

She sees Clint, knows him by the way he runs, with that military precision that makes him look as if he's gliding. He's headed for the front of the crowd, using his bow to clear his way.

There's a hum in the air, and a small child shouts excitedly in Arabic, pointing at Death. Her mother pulls her back – and then there's a clack, and for a moment the air seems to shatter into a thousand fragments, like a mirror cracking, and the mother is …

_Gone._

The little girl lets out a shriek. Clint vaults into the empty spot where the woman had been, in front of the child, and draws his bow. Another one of HYDRA's guards recognizes the danger and takes aim at Clint. Natasha fires a round into his head without thinking even as she sees a second man get off a round with a semi-automatic before falling to the ground, dropping the still-firing gun. _Bond._

The alien weapon gives off that same hum again. It's charging, ready to fire - this time at Clint, whose leg is buckling slightly. The fabric of his jeans blooms red. (_Stray from the falling Uzi?_)

A blue flash illuminates Clint's face as he loosens the arrow …

… and Natasha does what she thought she would never do.

She screams.

…..

_Bond_

He's racing past the United Nations post, dimly aware of the undisciplined knot of people crowding in. So many – probably waiting to register, or to be assigned one of the tents, or a cooking kit. Piles of supplies are stacked atop a lorry, guarded by Jordanian security against the people for whom they represent a lifeline.

The most logical assumption should be that the weapon will be handed off to some unknown buyer, perhaps pretending to be one of those relief kits, and will eventually make its way to the fighting in Syria. The question is how it will eventually be used – although as Barton said, a single, hand-held weapon surely cannot make that much of a difference in a conflict fought with bombs, chemical agents and IEDs.

Something in Barton and Romanoff's sense of extreme urgency is catching, and he cannot deny a sense of foreboding. Call it professional paranoia or gut instinct, it won't be silenced, and it drives him forward as he shoulders aside civilian after protesting civilian.

He can hear Romanoff talking to someone in his ear – not Barton. One of the HYDRA types? For a moment his jaw clenches. Had he been right all along? Is she still that cold-blooded mercenary, who was willing to murder an innocent civilian to get her hands on dangerous technology just so she could sell it to the highest bidder?

But then he hears her hoarse whisper over the comm, something about _playing for the other team_, then something to Barton about a _traitor_ and that's interesting, coming from her, but maybe what he'd seen in that olive grove was true and she's really changed?

_No matter, Bond. Run._

There's a crowd in the way, gathered around a registration area of some sort. It consists of a number of collapsible field tables, sitting side by side, covered in paper and low-tech cardboard boxes, with people in UN shirts sitting behind them, looking harassed but determined.

_The clearest road._

Bond jumps on the first table and runs along the length of the lot. They're rickety and wobbly and fall away under the push of his feet, and there are vociferous protests from the UN personnel whose papers are scattering like a cloud, but he makes it to the end before the whole thing folds like a house of cards_. _The maneuver gains him ten metres he would otherwise have had to spend mushing through dense crowds, so _après moi le d__é__luge_.

He shoves his way through a last group of raggedy civilians, only to emerge unexpectedly beside one of the HYDRA Jeeps. It's blocked by armed guards, standing in a half circle with guns loosely on the ready. They look like the private military security types so many aid agencies have on retainer, now that they are targets too. Classic goons, burly, western, and ex-military by bearing, wearing camo pants and Kevlar vests and carrying M-16s. (Brits? Americans? Germans? Does it matter?)

The refugees, used to the sight of armed men standing between them and what they need, are keeping a respectful – but not particularly fearful - distance. In places like this, guns are a part of life.

The nearest of the guards has his back to Bond, and is staring intently at … _bloody hell, are they setting up that weapon_? He's even more interested in the proceedings as the crowd, who seem to consider this an exotic form of entertainment, brought to them courtesy of the Right to Play or something.

But this man knows what the thing can do, and his interest is eagerness to see it in action_. _His tongue is wetting his lips at the sight.

Well, Double-Oh-Seven is not one to miss opportunities, or to inspect the jaws of gift horses. He delivers a cracking whip of his pistol across the back of the man's skull, and doesn't bother watching him fall. _One down._

Out of the corner of his eye, through the crowd, he spots Zeid, running towards them with a small group of Jordanian soldiers. Would that an MI-6 badge carried similar weight with Her Majesty's armed forces. Bond can't recall a single instance when he got military back-up – they're far more likely to shoot _at _him, not _with_ him. Best he's ever done is getting fished out of the sea by the Navy.

There's the red flash of Romanoff's hair – she's headed for that weapon too, a man dropping as she runs past him, and Bond doesn't quite know whether to be relieved or disappointed that the Black Widow is still on side.

But then there's a hum, a whine, and a clacking sound and _Jesus H. Christ,_ HYDRA is going to discharge it into the crowd?

_Why on Earth?_

No time to waste with questions. Bond delivers headshots to two of the PMSC types beside the jeep, then another, dispensing death without a moment's hesitation. He vaults across the vehicle to get closer to the van, and to have a shot at the people operating the alien weapon. From his current position he can hear it charging up, but he can't see it, and he has no shot … _no shot_.

Of course the pop-pop of his Walther has alerted the other two guards, and they turn towards him, guns raised. He fires again. One of the men manages to get off a round of shots from his Uzi that stirs the air beside Bond's head. There's a cry behind him as the bullets find another target. _Shit._

And then he sees Barton, running like a man possessed, using his bow to part the crowd and shove people out of the way.

Somewhere ahead of him the alien gun erupts – all he can see from behind it is a blue flash, briefly silhouetting the crowd. _Including Marquardt, but there's no shot, no shot. _

A dull thud shakes the soil and a hole opens up, where a mother and child had stood just a second ago. The woman splinters apart, is swallowed up by that hole and … gone.

And Barton, he's in the place where she was, shoving the child behind him, nocking an arrow. Off to his left, one of the PMSC types in camo pants and a flak jacket goes down – _Romanoff, heading their way._

Bond spots another guard, who seems to have awoken to the threat represented by that incongruous bow; the man lifts his Uzi and starts firing. His first shots hit a group of civilians to the left of Barton; the spray of bullets is moving towards the archer when Bond's shot causes the man's head to snap back and the gun, firing a final bullet, falls to the ground.

Barton, his right leg buckling but his arm steady, releases his arrow even as Romanoff's scream over the comm causes Bond's ears to ring.

_The arrow flies, straight and true, into the blue alien fire._

…..

_Clint_

He mentally congratulates himself for taking the back way; it may be longer, but there are far fewer people behind the hospital tent than in front of it and he'll probably beat Tasha and Bond to the van.

The bouncing of the quiver on his back is a familiar thing, as oddly grounding as the weight of the recurve in his hand. Someone moves into his path and he uses the bow like Cap would his shield, out front, a little shove and a twist and the way is clear.

The crowd is getting denser and he's forced to slow down. He can see the van and the jeep with a ring of goons. On the right, a ways back, Bond's head is bobbing through the crowd and there's a flash of red on the other side, nicely visible among the dark heads and the scarves.

Natasha seems to be stopping – _why?_ But then he hears her talking, and he knows that tone; someone's about to die of surprise. He doesn't listen to what's in his ears, he's too busy running, but then he hears her say his name and something about _McMullen_, and what the fuck?

But what's ahead is far more important than what's done. Clint keeps running, shoving, pushing and then he's out of the crowd and there's Marquardt in a UN shirt (what happened to the original owner?) and a few more guys.

Clint wants to draw his bow but then he hears it, the oddest whine. There's a sudden pressure in his ears that's followed by a dull _thud. _

People beside him start screaming as one of those in the front, a woman who'd been standing there beside a little girl, just … splinters and vanishes.

It's like one of those magic acts in the circus, except there's no smoke to distract, no wand, no music and no magician with a smile, just a thug with an alien gun and Marquardt with a gloating grin.

_And the audience is an orphaned child._

Up close the effect is worse than across a mile of desert rock. He'd imagined there'd be something else to mark such a death - a smell or a whisper, a spatter of blood. But there's nothing, just an absence, almost like a denial that something had been there to begin with, and all that remains is the little girl's scream.

And for some reason, despite all the deaths he's seen and sowed, that _nothing _bothers Clint more than anything he's ever seen.

Bond is coming up now in his peripheral vision, men with guns around him falling like leaves as he goes and _fuck_, that guy's a machine, like Cap, only slower. There's Natasha, too, on the other side - the two are converging, working in tandem, slicing their way through the crowd towards him.

And towards that gun.

_Eyes forward. _

The alien weapon is strangely curved and ornate, with a bluish glow (like Loki's scepter yet different - one shatters bodies, the other, minds). The whine comes again, and Clint knows he must stop the next shot, and he knows that just killing the gunner won't do the trick.

_Thor would know what to do. Or Ironman. _

He remembers Marquardt and his almost-successful attempt to break open the Earth with a new form of power – just what is it he wants to break open here?

And from out of nowhere Q's voice pops into his head: _Space ships and aliens … whatever you might need disrupting… _

The briefest of flashes to that other arrow, the one that nearly brought down a ship - several dozen lives for a single shot, and the start of an invasion, and wouldn't it be ironic if this time it actually worked for good?

He dials up the Quartermaster's latest gift, practiced fingers playing the sequence without hesitation. He nocks it, draws the string and sets his jaw.

_Fuck 'em all. _

Maybe he can't throw a car, fly a nuke into a wormhole, command the lightning or smash a would-be god into a concrete floor, but Hawkeye can sure as hell put a stop to a single gun.

_And he doesn't even have to fly._

"Hey, motherfucker!" he shouts at Marquardt, and the man with the gun. "Frack this!"

The goon lifts the weapon, Marquardt opens his mouth and says something, and then things kind of slow down as they always do for Clint in moments like this. Good thing he isn't the life-flashing-before-your-eyes type, because that'd be all kinds of distracting when you're trying to focus on what's before you …

… which in this case is the oddest gun ever. Fucking thing really does look backwards: Stock up front, barrel-like end pointing in the wrong direction… here's hoping that hole in the front is the actual muzzle.

There's a dull tap on his leg and he can feel it want to go, but this isn't about his leg, this is about what he sees and the touch of the string on his fingers and the deadly exhale of his bow.

He lets fly, right into the blue light.

Deep inside his ears, suddenly there's Natasha screaming his name but it's is drowned out by a dull _thud _inside his body, inside his head, as if those earplugs of Q's were trying to drill their way into his skull, and for a moment everything stops and he can't breathe.

And then the gun cracks into a thousand million pieces and the guy holding it too; Marquardt gets lifted off the ground and all around people are falling, falling outward, away from the gun like ripples on a lake, and Clint's own feet left the ground some time ago – shit that leg hurts - and he catches a glimpse of a dirty-blond head as he flies (Barney? what the fuck? no, that's Bond…) and then there's nothing, no more sound, no more screams, no more Natasha, just …

_Silence. _

And everything goes black.

…..

_Bond_

Whatever Barton did with that arrow of his (of Q's?), causes a shockwave that blows through the crowd in the form of screams and flying bodies. Bond sees it coming, covers his ears with his hands and ducks into it sideways, somehow managing to stay on his feet.

The pressure passes, and he straightens to view the carnage.

Romanoff, over on the other side of the van, is the first to scramble back on her feet and is running to Barton, who is lying still flat on his back, bleeding from his ears and his nose, possibly elsewhere. The kid he'd been protecting is behind him in the dust, holding her head, crying. _But alive._

Other people are getting up, dazed but moving, some moaning, many starting to run away from the scene. These are people who know what it's like to be near explosions, and that secondary ones often are the real killers. One, carrying a baby, looks at the place where the woman had been with horror in his eyes, scoops up the crying kid with his free hand and runs. (Her father? Here's hoping.)

Marquardt's remaining thugs – three of them, the man with the gun has disappeared, like the weapon – are slowly getting to their feet, grubbing for their guns in the dust. There's a short burst of gunfire and the first of them falls back down, followed in rapid succession by his companions.

Bond's eyes whip around to see Zeid, accompanied by a couple of men in uniform; all have their weapons drawn and are obviously not interested in taking chances. (Or prisoners.)

He wastes no time on the other minions, happy to let the Jordanians deal with them; after all, it's their own turf. But one of those on his knees, unarmed and shaking his head – droplets of blood flying from his nose – is Marquardt.

Him, Bond wants.

He runs over to the man and shoves him back on the ground with the muzzle of his gun.

"Talk to me," he grates out. "Why use that thing, rather than sell it? And why here?"

Remembering his and Barton's past encounter with Marquardt and the latter's penchant for monologues, maybe – just maybe - he can get an answer?

Marquardt pulls his face out of the dust, sits on his hands and knees.

"Mr. Bond," he coughs. "And Mr. Barton. I should have known. You are standing in the way of our glorious victory for now, but it will not be long in coming."

Marquardt looks around at the bodies in the now otherwise empty area, and gives a contemptuous smile at his comrades' failure. And then he swirls his tongue around his mouth and bites down.

_Bloody hell. _

Marquardt, it appears, has learned (been taught?) a lesson about talking too much, and so his answer is not an answer at all. Unable to contain his frustration, Bond grabs him by the collar and starts shaking him, fully aware that it's too late and furious at the smug contempt in Marquardt's eyes.

"This was always a suicide mission, Mr. Bond," Marquardt coughs as small bubbles start to seep out from the corner of his mouth. "It is the fashion in this part of the world."

He coughs again, and the bubbles turn pink.

"Cut off one head, two will rise in its place. _Hail …"_

Bond looks up to watch Romanoff, Barton's head in her lap, bring down the last of Marquardt's goons with a double tap to the back of his head as he runs.


	8. Chapter 8

_Bond_

They're sitting in the business class lounge at Amman airport, each lost in their own thoughts.

Bond's mind keeps replaying the scene in the camp: Romanoff, shielding her fallen partner with her body during the exchange of fire between the remaining HYDRA operatives and the Jordanian security forces, yelling at him about what an idiot he's been and how she'll kill him if he dared die on her.

Burying her face in Barton's hair as they waited for medevac.

Bond remembers the apparent enthusiasm with which she had slept with him, back there on Skye all that time ago. The ease with which she had left him and Barton in the hands of HYDRA, the cool detachment with which she had walked away that last time.

And now this. It's not that he's jealous, it's more that he is surprised, and trying to process that fact. He doesn't surprise easily, not when it comes to people. _Not since Vesper._

Finally, he can't stand it any longer. He hopes that she won't misunderstand his question, but he just has to know. _Needs_ to know.

"How did you manage tochange?"

Her cool green eyes hold his for a moment, and she seems to find enough in his to give him an answer that might just be the truth. At least, as much of the truth as it exists for her, at this moment in time.

"Clint was the first person who ever gave me his trust. He's still the only one."

Bond takes a moment to digest this response, but he thinks he gets it. It always comes back to Vesper_ –_ and in this case the betrayal that ultimately wasn't. (Unless it was?) He'll never find out, but he does know that he changed from what he had been, when, and why - then.

_Trust._

Romanoff's answer, honest or not, deserves something in return.

"I'm sure he'll pull through."

He's not sure whether he really believes it, but it seems to be what she needs to hear.

"He usually does."

Her face tightens a little and their conversation, such as it was, seems to be over. Bond reaches for a paper when the door to the lounge opens.

It's Zeid, wearing another official-looking badge around his neck, one that must have gotten him into the airline lounge without actually holding a ticket. He is dressed in a suit and looks a lot more … authoritative than he ever had as a driver. Older, too.

Bond glances back to where Romanoff sits, now curled in on herself and playing with her smartphone. (Sending text messages to Barton, in case he wakes up?) He briefly and irrelevantly wonders whether she uses emoticons, like Moneypenny always does, and what the appropriate one would be for chewing out someone for trying to die an excessively noble death.

Romanoff looks up at Zeid's approach, her eyebrows drawn in a question that the latter is happily prepared for. His answer sounds a bit like a press statement, but is welcome nonetheless.

"I am pleased to advise that the helicopter carrying Mr. Barton landed at the US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, an hour ago," Zeid says with a slightly forced smile. "He is stable and resting comfortably, I am told, and is in good hands."

Romanoff would obviously rather be with Barton than hear second-hand reports, though, and looks more irritated than happy. But then she remembers her manners.

"Thank you, Zeid."

Her smartphone chooses that moment to ring, a distinctive tone she obviously recognizes; she doesn't bother looking at the call display as she puts the phone to her ear and her face is unreadable.

"_Agent Romanoff._"

As she gets up and walks out of the lounge, Bond hears her saying, "Do you really think that's a good idea, Maria?"

The answer on the other end seems to be _yes. _She follows up with a "That's cold, even for Fury."

There's an awkward silence during which Zeid makes no move to leave, and so Bond decides to move the conversation into a different place.

"I assume your Service will send a replacement to infiltrate the Embassy in due course? Maybe as a gardener this time? Or a cook?"

Zeid has the good grace to look embarrassed.

"I'm sorry," he starts, but Bond waves him off.

They both know bloody well that he is no such thing – it's how the game is played. Any population of locally engaged employees at any respectable embassy is presumed to contain a certain percentage of spies; Jordan, friendly or not, is neither the first nor will it be the last country to follow that tradition.

Bond grins at the erstwhile driver.

"Just make sure that whomever they send, he or she is as competent as their predecessor. Oh, and tell your people not to bother with the broken English next time. We know that most of you went to Cambridge."

"Oxford " Zeid flashes a genuine grin now. "The same college as His Majesty, actually, just a few years later."

Bond snorts, but having mentioned his King, Zeid is on an evident roll.

"I came to express my Government's thanks to you and your colleagues. We still have no idea why those people decided to attack the camp. There is nothing there to be won, other than bring more fear and misery for people who cannot defend themselves, and to bring those fears to Jordan. And if they had succeeded, the consequences could have been … very bad. For the refugees at Za'atari, for the UN, for my country."

It occurs to Bond then that maybe that had been the point of this exercise: to shatter a place that had managed to stay out of the conflicts on its borders - by bringing a new, alien horror into the game? But to what end? More weapons sales? To outflank Syria, and go for its oil?

Bond is a field operative, not an analyst. MI-6 and S.H.I.E.L.D. have whole divisions of experts, who maybe can come up with the whys and wherefores of Marquardt's intent and how this bizarre, apparently one-off action might feed the prevailing political winds.

For now, at least, the problem has been contained. _Deter, Detect, Delay, Defend. _He's done his job - _delay and defend. _As have Barton and Romanoff.

And Zeid, too, for that matter. Maybe he should be gracious for once.

"You're welcome, and thank _you_. Most other agents in your situation would have just tried to slow down things and waited for instructions, instead of outing themselves and getting involved."

It's Zeid's turn to shrug.

"I watched you. You fight and you kill, but you care for ordinary people. People you have never met, in a country that is not yours. Those were all the orders I needed."

He smiles a little impishly.

"And whatever trouble I might get into with my authorities for blowing my cover, your Director will fix. Your Miss Moneypenny says so. She sounds very fierce."

Bond can't help the grin that steals onto his face.

"That she is. With Eve Moneypenny on your side, you have nothing to fear but fear itself."

Fortunately, Zeid isn't one for drawn out farewells. He extends his hand for a shake, which Bond returns with sincerity.

"Please give our thanks to Miss Romanoff and to Mr. Barton, if … when he recovers," Zeid says simply, and walks away.

_If Barton recovers._

Bond looks at his watch. The plane is late, and they've got at least another hour to kill. Romanoff isn't back from wherever she went for privacy, not that she'd be a great conversationalist anyway in her current mood. Time to stretch his legs.

The airport shopping concourse is a bit of an open bazaar, boasting the usual perfumes and booze, with a liberal dose of local products and kitsch at ten times the price you'd be charged outside. There are racks upon open racks of Dead Sea products and stacks of Middle Eastern sweets. On impulse, he grabs a bag of bath salts for Moneypenny (he does owe her for those Friday night bookings).

And then he sees it, on one of those turning racks of cheap jewelry, right by the checkout. It's stupid and tacky, but it's also perfect and while James Bond isn't given to mawkish gestures, Barton is a friend, and Romanoff … well, she is whatever she is, to either of them.

Sod it.

He grabs the thing off the rack, watches an indifferent clerk stick it first in a little box and then a plastic bag with the salts, and heads back to the lounge, uncomfortably aware that he may have just made what Eve would call _a major evolutionary advance_.

He returns to the lounge to find Romanoff back in the same spot she had occupied earlier, leafing through a magazine he would not have associated with her in a hundred years. He contemplates giving her the box right away, but the wall around her seems a mile high and capped with razor wire, and so he collects a couple of expat English newspapers instead.

It's odd, Bond reflects as he leafs through the first one, how different places deal with so-called _major incidents_. In London, an exotic animal with large fangs had brought out the mainstream media, the twitterati and the Metropolitan police in equal numbers. It's been several days, and the pictures are still on the front page of the Sunday Times, beside ongoing braying about the Greenwich aftermath. ("_What is the Government doing about the alien menace in our streets?" "Is MI-6 up to the job?")_

There are calls in the House of Commons for a public inquiry into how the 'Southwark T Rex' was allowed to rampage for several days. Killing a (tragically still unknown) number of homeless Londoners before being slain - _by_ _Americans, for goodness' sake._

In the Za'atari refugee camp, on the other hand, just yesterday an alien weapon had killed a woman, caused several dozen secondary injuries to civilians, and triggered a shootout resulting in almost a dozen more deaths. The response?

A one-paragraph piece on Page 8 of the Jordan Times, without by-line, characterizing the whole thing as an "…_altercation between opposing factions in the Syrian conflict, attempting to bring their fight to Jordan. Jordanian security forces were on hand to quell the incident, in which a small improvised explosive device resulted in the death of a Syrian refugee, critically injured an American aid worker. Calm was restored within minutes of the incident."_

Either Jordanian intelligence is a lot more effective at suppressing reporting than MI-6 could ever hope to be, or people in this part of the world are so inured to violence that it no longer rates front page treatment, let alone investigative reporting.

Bond puts down the paper, feeling twitchy already. Double-Oh-Seven was not meant to spend more than ten minutes in an airport lounge without an active assignment. He heads over to the bar, bypassing the cappuccino machine. It's still morning, but what the hell.

Another point in Jordan's favour: The counter, in addition to passable wines from the Bekaa Valley, holds a bottle of Gordon's gin and a half-decent Vermouth. Not to mention the bowl of nice, plump olives he spotted over by the salad bar. Not bad, provided you're not too proud to drink your martini from a wine glass.

He mixes two – dirty - and sets the second glass down on the coffee table where Romanoff is sitting. She looks up with a muttered _thanks,_ which is as good a conversation opener as anything.

"New assignment?" he asks. She nods, frowning.

"Fury wants me to go to Colombia. _Since Barton is out of commission_, as Hill says he put it_, might as well pair Romanoff up with Rogers._ I'm not sure whether he expects me to learn something from Captain America, or the other way around. All I know is that I get to board another plane at Heathrow."

_With her partner in hospital on a military base in Germany, possibly fighting for his life._

"Can you say no?"

Romanoff shrugs.

"Clint would want me to go if he heard what the mission was. Besides, he's a pain in the ass as a patient. Apparently, a new group of narco-terrorists has popped up that make the FARC look like the Salvation Army. They're terrorizing the _campesinos_, driving them off their land. Seems like a good year for attacking the defenseless."

Indeed. Who would attack the seats of power, when wars can be fought in farmers' fields, markets and shopping malls?

"_Saving the world, one menace at a time_," he quotes Barton.

"I guess," she says diffidently. "It's like we're playing a game of whack-a-mole, though. You knock out one monster, another pops right up."

_You cut off one head, two more will grow in its place._

For some reason Bond feels a chill, like a bug crawling across his spine.

"Let's just hope those monsters don't ever decide to touch feelers and swarm."

There's a moment of silence, and so he adds, "Zeid sends greetings, by the way, and thanks."

"Thanks for what?" Romanoff says diffidently. "We were all just doing our jobs. _Again_."

Bond is pretty sure that the diffidence is meant to cover for the fact that Zeid had had to almost physically restrain her from getting into the chopper with her partner. They'd been bloody lucky that medevac had been available on such short notice; taking passengers had not been an option. As if to prove him right, Romanoff sighs.

"You know, sometimes I wish the world would stay saved, just for a little bit."

He nods, and they share a moment of sympathetic silence. There it is, then, that lowering of her walls that he's been waiting for.

"I got you something."

She frowns in surprise.

"You went _shopping_?"

He points at the bag from the Duty Free.

"I did. For you and Moneypenny."

Romanoff escalates her disbelief to a raised eyebrow, but her usual ironic smirk has lost a bit of its luster in the last twenty-four hours.

"Oh James, you shouldn't have."

Ignoring her, he pushes the bag over to her side of the coffee table.

"Little one in there is yours. If you don't like it, you still have that Martini. And don't worry, I didn't poison that."

She hesitates for a moment, but takes a demonstrative sip from her glass before shaking the small box out of the bag.

"It's nothing special," Bond says, suddenly feeling awkward. "I got it in the Duty Free."

"I guessed that much, by the elegant wrapping. What's the occasion?"

"Why don't you just open it?"

Bond finds himself getting a bit impatient. Can't a guy do something nice for a colleague without being suspected of planting an IED? Moneypenny wouldn't …

He eyes the bag of Dead Sea Salts. Of course she would. ("_What's this, Bond? Anthrax? I didn't know it came as crystals._")

Right. _Trust._

Natasha gives him a long stare, but finally opens the box. Her eyes widen a little as she dangles the thin chain with the silver arrow off her index finger.

"Why?" she asks simply.

It's Bond's turn to frown. Truth be told, he doesn't actually know why he bought the thing, only that it felt … right.

"To wear until he's better? Until you can work together again?"

Her lips curl in the tiniest of smiles.

"You realize, of course, that Clint will think I've gone totally over the edge if I wear that."

"And is that a bad thing?"

She looks at him with those unfathomable green eyes. (Damn, but Barton is a lucky man.) Her answer, when it comes, isn't an answer at all.

"You know, you should really ask her out."

The sudden turn of the conversation brings him up short.

"Ask _whom_ out?"

"Your Moneypenny. When you give her those bath salts. She'll be so stunned, she'll probably say yes. Here, help me with this."

Natasha (and just when did she become Natasha?) walks over to him, handing him the necklace before holding her neck out just so. Bond's throat goes a little dry as he watches the silver arrow settle in the dip between her clavicles and inhales her perfume. It's the one he remembers from Skye - but all he can think about all of a sudden is the difference between her pale, almost translucent skin and the much richer glow of Eve's.

That look in Natasha's eyes has become a full-fledged grin. For a moment Bond is concerned that she might be able to read his mind, but either she can't, or she is deliberately changing the topic. (Again.)

Her voice is a throaty purr when she says, "You realize, of course, that since this is a gift from a foreign intelligence operative, S.H.I.E.L.D. will want to sweep it for bugs."

…..

_Moneypenny_

M fixes Fury with a stare that could freeze steel, as if he were to blame personally if not for Greenwich, then at least for its more recent aftermath.

Officially, the Director's presence in London is the classic post-apocalyptic courtesy call. People in his and M's position are expected to ruminate over damage their political masters think they should have prevented, so as to better try and avoid a next time. And so it really had only been a question of time until a post-Greenwich intelligence summit.

But once Fury's Council and their Committee issued their marching orders, M had insisted he come to London alone – a clear signal that while Greenwich might be the subject of some of her talking points, there was something else to be discussed as well.

So here he is, in all his towering, leather-clad glory, filling the doorframe leading into MI-6's inner sanctum.

"Things _have _changed," she says by way of a greeting.

"They have."

Fury doesn't appear to take much joy in agreeing with her, nor is he interested in small talk.

"Aliens and their arsenals seem to be everywhere these days. And thanks to that last hiccup, I have to make do without Barton for God knows how many months. Just when he was getting good at dealing with this shit, too."

M could, of course, offer him her sympathies, but she usually can't be bothered with hypocrisy; it detracts from the now. In her world, assets get used, damaged and killed; you move on with what you have left at the end of the day.

But she has been known to express mild interest in human well-being on occasion, always to Eve's surprise. She does so now.

"I'm sorry your Agent Barton was hurt in the operation. How is he doing?"

Fury lets out a heavy sigh.

"As well as can be expected. Cracked skull, broken scapula, three broken ribs, gunshot wound to the thigh. Profound hearing loss from the shockwave caused when he neutralized the weapon with that EMP arrowhead. The comms device in his ears probably saved his life, but there was some damage to the cochlear nerves. The doctors in Landstuhl hope that it'll be temporary."

M makes sympathetic noises, while Eve's mind makes a few quick calculations. _Would that kind of disability take Barton out of the field? _Fury must have noticed her concern; his next remark is directed at her.

"He should be able to get back on the job by late spring. Stark and Banner have already offered to work on a hearing aid for him until he gets his full hearing back. Knowing them, they'll design it so Barton can only hear the kinds of orders he's interested in following. Not much of a change, but he'll have a better excuse. In the meantime, he'll make life for a bunch of doctors very, very miserable."

M smiles a little sourly and points to the seating arrangement in the corner of her office.

"While Mr. Barton recovers, we should determine just why HYDRA was trying to feed the crisis in the Middle East."

Fury nods, and takes the offered seat, duster flapping as he does. Eve has learned her lesson, and doesn't bother offering to take it for him. If the King of Spies needs a security blanket to do his job, he should have one.

"Also, why Marquardt was there. Killing unarmed refugees must be considered a chicken shit operation for HYDRA, no matter how fancy the toy or how large the ripple effect. I'd have thought he was more important than being used for something like that."

M snorts her dismissal.

"I assume that whatever rank he held in HYDRA, he lost it after the debacle on Skye. That must have cost them millions of pounds. He has probably been in the wilderness since." M casts a loving look over her bulldog bobble head. "And so they sent him to the modern-day equivalent of the Eastern Front. Unglamorous, menial duty, resulting in probable death in the name of The Cause."

Fury digests this, and finally nods.

"As for objective, do we assume they were after upping the ante in the Syrian war? People in that part of the world don't even blink at a mere gun anymore. So having extremists come up with a truly gruesome new weapon, now that might get attention. And it wouldn't matter that there was only one of those things. Remember what one moron with a bomb in the heel of his shoe did to civil aviation."

"Except we still don't know why. And why target the most vulnerable people in that region? The ones who've already lost everything?"

For a moment, M sounds almost compassionate, like the woman she might once have been, before her desensitization by daily disaster.

"The only thing that would make any sense is that HYDRA is intentionally stoking conflict and violence, so that they can emerge from the chaos like a balm. The people of Afghanistan once embraced the Taliban, you will recall, as saviors from the warlords."

Fury shakes his head; he clearly isn't sold.

"HYDRA doesn't have the numbers or the organizational strength to be a balm of any kind."

M looks at Fury thoughtfully, then abruptly motions Eve to get out the Scotch. A reverent silence descends while Eve pours two decent-sized portions. Finally, after making a show of inhaling the bouquet – Eve can smell the fragrant peat from where she is sitting - M speaks again.

"I hope you are right. The last thing the world needs is a resurgence of national socialism, or whatever bizarre ideology these people are espousing. I suppose we will all just need to keep our eyes open. But interesting as this discussion has been, that is not actually why I asked you to come here."

Fury bares his teeth in a half-assed attempt at a smile.

"Romanoff mentioned you might be pissed off about her expense claim. Or did you want to yell at me some more for allegedly bringing the alien plague to Britain?"

M huffs out a breath through her nose that could almost conceal a laugh.

"Not to talk about plagues, no. And despite Bond's report, this is not about locusts, either."

She takes another sip of her drink, and directs her ice-blue gaze at Fury over the rim of her glass.

"We have done a bit of detective work and looked into those communication issues with your European bureau." She adds smugly, "That is, after all, what MI-6 is good at. Basic intelligence and analysis."

Eve keeps her head down. The thought that her little midnight research effort for the boss might end up at the centre of an intelligence summit between two of the most powerful agencies on the planet is … daunting. (And worth remembering at performance evaluation time.)

Fury swirls the amber liquid in his tumbler and watches it for a second.

"We _know_ there was a bad apple in our Vienna office. Guy named McMullen. He's been moonlighting for that Serbian arms dealer Romanoff took out in Vienna, and appears to have been the one to deliver the weapon to Marquardt's group."

M gives him a long, hard look.

"Yes, this is in part about your Mr. McMullen. But I'm afraid it does not stop with him. I recommend you take a closer look at that Vienna office of yours. Moneypenny, the file please."

Eve hands over the folder; it's not very thick.

"We did find a total of three calls from the same number, made from Ground Zero in Greenwich by an unknown operative. to two numbers in Austria. The first belongs to Radovan Vaskovic; this is the call that triggered our alert, since we were watching his lines. The second, we now know, was to that embad apple/em of yours, Agent McMullen. Vaskovic, it seems, was only the middle man; whoever made those calls knew that McMullen would ultimately be responsible for the weapon's delivery to the end user."

Fury looks thoughtful.

"You tag who made those calls?"

"Regrettably, no. He – or she - used a burner phone, probably threw it away as soon as they left the scene. Given the potential domestic implications, we alerted our sister agency, MI-5, but I'm afraid the trail is cold."

She slides the file over to Fury.

"What should be of interest, though, is that the Greenwich caller contacted another entity linked to S.H.I.E.L.D. Perhaps McMullen is not the only … _freelancer_ in your organization,"

Fury stares at the folder as if it were something toxic.

"Who?" he asks, his voice almost resigned.

"A charter company."

"A _charter company_? I thought those weapons went into Jordan by private cargo plane."

"They did. This call was made an hour before Malekith made landfall, and may be totally unconnected to the discovery of this weapon. The only connection is that it was made from the same phone. Still, it bears investigating, in my opinion."

M takes a sip of her drink, almost as if she deliberately wants to keep Fury in suspense.

"The company is based in Marseille and runs a number of ships for sophisticated, technical operations, such as the laying of fibre optics cables and satellite launch platforms. And one of those ships happens to be under contract by your Vienna office."

"_Ships_."

It's a statement, not a question. M gives Fury a withering look.

"That_ is _what charter companies do, Mr. Fury. You may choose to disregard this information, but given that neither of us can say with any certainty whether your Agent McMullen's primary links were to Vaskovic or to HYDRA, it bears pursuing. In my opinion. But S.H.I.E.L.D. is not my agency."

Fury stares at the file for a while, flipping through the pages. The documents may not be Gamma classified, but it's not M's habit to let guests take things out of her office. He seems familiar with the approach and takes his time to commit the details to memory. Finally, he hands the file back to Eve with a world-weary sigh.

Eve looks to M for approval to leave – she might as well dispose of the document now, lest she leave it on her desk and get another security infraction. (They never give one of those to the boss, always to the assistant, funny how that works.) Dispensation is granted, and Eve heads for the shredder.

Of course, there is no harm in looking before you shred, is there?

The information about the charter company was compiled elsewhere though and is new to Eve, but M will undoubtedly expect her to know it at some point in the future.

There in the file is the phone record she herself had dug up, and a public corporate profile. The matching telephone numbers are highlighted in yellow. According to the information, the company runs four vessels; as is often the case, they have similar names.

In this case, the names are drawn from legend – based evidently on a theme of lost continents and doomed cities: _The Horn of Atlantis. The Heraklian Sun. The Song of Mu. _And her personal favourite - _The Lemurian Star._

What kind of sick tosser names a ship after a drowned civilization, let alone four? Why not just call them _Titanic_ _A, B, C_ and _D_?

Eve returns to her desk, where Bond's mission report is waiting under a box of Dead Sea salts. She smiles at the packet of blue crystals. The gift had been a major surprise – so much so that she agreed to meet him for dinner, but perhaps that's not such a bad thing. (He could be sidelined and in a hospital now, like Agent Barton, but she prefers not to think about that.)

Eve moves the salts and picks up the report with a sigh. M will need a summary of the highlights to present to the Committee in the morning; she may as well get started before the inevitable tasking comes down.

Bond must have written the thing on the plane; he usually never provides more than bullets. This one's positively ponderous though, full of ruminations about Jordan and … biblical plagues?_ Seriously?_

And so it comes to pass, as she flips through the barely legible notes, that Eve finds herself wondering whether there had been sightings of locusts in Lemuria before it sank.


End file.
